The Concept of Solidarity in Anarchist Thought

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John Nightingale

A Doctoral Thesis

submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy

Loughborough University

September 2015

Abstract

This thesis makes an original contribution to knowledge by presenting an analysis of anarchist conceptions of solidarity. Whilst recent academic literature has conceptualised solidarity from a range of perspectives, anarchist interpretations have largely been marginalised or ignored. This neglect is unjustified, for thinkers of the anarchist tradition have often emphasised solidarity as a key principle, and have offered original and instructive accounts of this important but contested political concept. In a global era which has seen the role of the nation state significantly reduced, anarchism, which consists in a fundamental critique and rejection of hierarchical state-like institutions, can provide a rich source of theory on the meaning and significance of solidarity.

The work consists in detailed analyses of the concepts of solidarity of four prominent anarchist thinkers: Michael Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, Murray Bookchin and Noam Chomsky. The analytic investigation is led by Michael Freeden’s methodology of ‘ideological morphology’, whereby ideologies are viewed as peculiar configurations of political concepts, which are themselves constituted by sub-conceptual idea- components. Working within this framework, the analysis seeks to ascertain the way in which each thinker attaches particular meanings to the concept of solidarity, and to locate solidarity within their wider ideological system. Subsequently, the thesis offers a representative profile of an ‘anarchist concept’ of solidarity, which is characterised by notions of universal inclusion, collective responsibility and the social production of individuality.

Contents

Acknowledgements ...... 1

1. Introduction ...... 4

2. Methodology: ideological morphology ...... 8

3. Bakunin’s concept of solidarity ...... 34

4. Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity ...... 71

5. Bookchin’s concept of solidarity ...... 109

6. Chomsky’s concept of solidarity ...... 145

7. Conclusion ...... 187

8. References ...... 207

Acknowledgements

Thanks must go to Lawrence Wilde, for sowing a seed, and many, many more to Ian Fraser and Alexandre Christoyannopoulos for helping me bring it to fruition. I am grateful also to the Graduate School at Loughborough University for giving me the opportunity to conduct this research, and to the department of Politics, History and International Relations for allowing me to do so in such a lively, stimulating and, above all, friendly environment. Thanks to Ruth Kinna, whose advice and criticism have been invaluable, and to Loughborough’s Anarchism Research Group, which has introduced me to a host of interesting and provocative debates within the field. A number of academic conferences have helped me to shape and refine the ideas presented in this thesis – thanks to all who participated in relevant panels at the Alternative Futures conferences at Nottingham Trent University, the Anarchist Studies Network conference at Loughborough in September 2012, the Cultural Difference and Social Solidarity workshop at Masaryk University in Brno in September 2014, and the Ecological Challenges conference at the University of Oslo, also in September 2014. For their curiosity, enthusiasm and good humour, I am thankful to all of the students I have taught at both Loughborough and Nottingham Trent universities during the course of this project. If they have learnt from me even a fraction of that which I have from them, then I can take great satisfaction in a job well done. Thanks also to those who have been tolerant enough to share their living space with me throughout various periods over the last four years – they know who they are. My greatest debt of gratitude is, of course, to my family, without whose seemingly limitless patience, support and love this project would simply not have been possible. A special mention is reserved for Tilly, for her company (and conversation) during the final months.

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (Donne, 2008: p. 344)

1. Introduction

Thinkers of the anarchist tradition have frequently invoked solidarity as a key principle, for the sake of both popular struggles against oppression in the present, and the social cohesion of a non-hierarchical and egalitarian society in the future. Given this, it is curious that contemporary scholarship on solidarity (Bayertz, 1999; Crow, 2002; Brunkhorst, 2005; Stjernø, 2005; Scholz, 2008) has largely overlooked anarchist conceptions. The purpose of this thesis is to rectify this lacuna by conducting an original exploration of the ways in which anarchist thinkers have conceptualised solidarity and assessing how anarchist notions of solidarity might serve to enhance our understanding of what solidarity means. To this end, the study consists in analyses of the concept of solidarity as conceived by four anarchist thinkers: the Russian revolutionary and classical anarchist Michael Bakunin (1814- 1876); the geographer and perhaps the most influential of all anarchist theorists, Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) – also Russian; the American anarchist and social ecologist, Murray Bookchin (1921-2006); and the US linguist, philosopher, political commentator and social justice activist, Noam Chomsky (born 1928). The analysis utilises Michael Freeden’s methodology of ‘ideological morphology’, which asserts that ideologies are constituted by peculiar configurations of political concepts which are in turn made up of various sub-conceptual ‘idea-components’. Concepts are understood in relation to their specific ideational context, since they are shaped by their relationships with neighbouring concepts in their host ideology. As such, this study makes original contributions in two distinct fields. First, in exploring the nature of anarchist conceptions of solidarity, it uncovers a perspective on solidarity that afforded scant consideration in contemporary literatures on the concept. Second, in locating the concept of solidarity within anarchism’s conceptual configuration according to the premises of ideological morphology, it presents an instructive interpretation of what constitutes anarchism as an ideology.

Solidarity is an important concept for social and political theorists, although it has been the subject of relative neglect since it was made prominent by Émile Durkheim in The Division of Labour in Society (1893). However, recent scholarship demonstrates an increasing interest in the concept, which, as Graham Crow argues,

4 is relevant in many areas of social life, including ‘Family and kinship relations, community life, trade union activity and the identity politics of new social movements’ (Crow, 2002: p. 1). In his study of Solidarity in Europe Steinar Stjernø identifies solidarity as ‘a key concept in two of the main political traditions within European politics – social democracy and Christian democracy’, which warrants reconsideration in an age of neoliberal individualism (Stjernø, 2005: pp. 1, 2). Sally J. Scholz argues in favour of ‘political solidarity’ as a commitment and means to the end of social justice, as an effective response to ‘injustice, oppression, or social vulnerability’ and highlights its ‘tremendous potential for modelling political and social participation in the twenty-first century’ (Scholz, 2008: pp. 189, 264). For Kurt Bayertz, ‘the concept of solidarity is … indispensable for a philosophy of morality and politics’ (Bayertz, 1999: p. 26), whilst Hauke Brunkhorst argues for a global institutionalisation of ‘democratic solidarity’ as a solution to social exclusion (Brunkhorst, 2005). Lawrence Wilde appeals to the normative goal of ‘global solidarity’ as a means to break the neoliberal stranglehold on the world economy and to establish an ethical commitment to social justice (Wilde, 2013).

The importance of solidarity for political theory is not questioned. However, what constitutes solidarity itself is the subject of a debate from which anarchist voices have been largely excluded. Although Stjernø notes that ‘anarchists developed a consistent and coherent theory and practice of working-class solidarity’, he deliberately ignores anarchist conceptions on the grounds that ‘anarchism failed to achieve political power’ (Stjernø, 2005: pp. 57, 58). This dismissal is unwarranted, not least because, as Wilde puts it, ‘anarchist contributions of the past may still have resonance today, when the idea of strong interventionist welfare states is in retreat, or … has ended’ (Wilde, 2007: p. 118). The deliberate neglect of anarchist conceptions of solidarity seems doubly unjustified when one considers the prominence of anarchist currents within the very global social movements (see, for instance, Day, 2005; Gordon, 2007a; Graeber, 2002) that many mark as important bulwarks for solidarity. Indeed, it is eminently possible that thinkers of the anarchist tradition, grounded in a fundamental rejection of external authority as embodied by hierarchical, state-like institutions, can offer original and instructive perspectives on this important concept. As such, this study will make a contribution to our knowledge and understanding of anarchist conceptions of solidarity.

With this in mind, I offer detailed analyses of the concept of solidarity as conceived by Bakunin, Kropotkin, Bookchin and Chomsky. The selection of these four thinkers is due in part to the prominence they afford solidarity within their respective ideologies, but also because each of them has influenced anarchist thought in distinctive and interesting ways at different periods in the history of the tradition. Bakunin and Kropotkin are both seen, almost without exception, and particularly within Anglo-American studies, as key thinkers of the classical anarchist tradition (Kinna, 2005: p. 12). Bookchin’s contribution to anarchist thought weds it to a theoretical ecologism that is particularly resonant in relation to the present environmental crisis, whilst Chomsky’s is perhaps the most prominent anarchist- intellectual voice within the contemporary global justice movement. Of course, this is not to say that other anarchist thinkers have little to say about solidarity, or that these four are categorically the most influential. Neither is it to suggest that these four thinkers are representative of anarchist ideology more generally, nor that their conceptions of solidarity exemplify those of anarchists as such. Rather, it should be stated simply that the identification of anarchist thought as a potentially rich source of theorisation on solidarity leads to the logical suggestion that the conceptions of individual anarchist thinkers warrant close analysis. To reiterate, then: in selecting the work of Bakunin, Kropotkin, Bookchin and Chomsky as source material for this analysis, I am not suggesting that those four thinkers are representative of anarchism generally, but rather that they, as anarchist thinkers, may provide us with fresh, instructive perspectives on solidarity. Indeed, it is hoped that this study is the first of many to examine anarchists’ (both theorists’ and practitioners’) conceptions of solidarity.

The structure of this thesis The thesis is structured as follows. Chapter 2 presents an extended explication and critique of Freeden’s methodology of ideological morphology. Chapter 3 consists in an analysis of Bakunin’s concept of solidarity and seeks to capture the idea- components contained within it. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 perform similar analyses of the concept of solidarity as decontested by Kropotkin, Bookchin and Chomsky respectively. In the final chapter, I draw together the findings of these analyses and attempt to construct a profile of a broadly representative anarchist concept of

6 solidarity. Ultimately I conclude that this concept comprises four aspects, one of which (the notion of a bond between individual and collective) is common to all concepts of solidarity; the other three of which are promoted – not necessarily exclusively, it must be noted – by anarchist conceptions. These three additional components are universal inclusion, collective responsibility and the social production of individuality. Subsequently, I explore the way in which solidarity operates as a core concept within the morphology of anarchist ideologies, paying particular attention to the way in which it is interlinked with the concepts of liberty and equality.

2. Methodology: ideological morphology

The present work conducts an analysis of anarchist conceptions of solidarity according to the methodological procedure advanced by Michael Freeden, the most comprehensive outline of which is to be found in his Ideologies and Political Theory (1996). In contrast to traditional conceptions of ideologies, which in various ways view them as ‘tantamount to what they do’,1 Freeden contends that there is a more fundamental level on which ideologies exist: ‘as ideational formations consisting of political concepts’ (Freeden, 1996: p. 48). Political concepts represent the building blocks of ideologies and individual ideologies are characterised by their own unique configurations of various political concepts. Freeden terms these conceptual formations ‘morphologies’, a term which emphasises the multidimensional aspect of the inter-conceptual relationships inherent to political thinking, which he argues is ‘in constant flux over space and time’ (Freeden, 2006: p. 19). Within an ideology’s morphology, the meanings of essentially contested political concepts are determined by a process of ‘decontestation’, whereby an ideology seeks to affix singular meanings to certain key terms in order to establish control over the political language (Freeden, 1996: p. 76). The notions of morphology and decontestation represent the nucleus of Freeden’s theory of ideologies and, as such, he promotes an approach to their study which consists in ‘identifying, describing, and analysing the building blocks that constitute [them] and the relationships among them’ (ibid.: p. 48).

My intention here is to provide a detailed summary of Freeden’s method, paying particular attention to the notions of morphology and decontestation which lie at the heart of his approach. I will seek also to explain the notion of essential contestability first theorised by W. B. Gallie (Gallie, 1956), an idea which underpins and is developed by Freeden’s theory of ideologies and of which some consideration is therefore necessitated. Subsequently, I subject the framework of ideological morphology to a critical evaluation with reference to a wider literature on the study of ideologies and political thinking in general, and seek to demonstrate its suitability in

1 Freeden notes that orthodox approaches to the study of political thought ‘have focused on truth and epistemology, ethical rightness, logical clarity, origins and causes, prescriptions, purposes and intentions’ (Freeden, 1996: p. 4). As such, ideologies have been construed variously as ‘integrative mechanisms, systems of domination, justificatory blueprints for political action, schemes of history, or reflections of social relationships and environments’ (ibid.: p. 48). 8 relation to the purposes of the current project. Ultimately, I argue that, despite some of the analytical weaknesses highlighted in the literature, the morphological approach represents a valid and methodologically robust framework within which to conduct an analysis of the concept of solidarity in anarchist thought.

As a longstanding proponent of their study, Freeden sees ideologies as having been unduly neglected in favour of analytical and normative political philosophies (Freeden, 1996: p. 1). He contends that ideologies warrant proper academic examination, since they represent ‘forms of political thought that provide important direct access to comprehending the formation and nature of political theory’ (ibid.). Broadly conceived, Freeden’s central thesis is that ‘ideologies are distinctive configurations of political concepts, and that they create specific conceptual patterns from a pool of indeterminate and unlimited combinations’ (ibid.: p. 4). The wide range of possible conceptual combinations is not the product of an infinite number of political concepts, but of the near-endless ways in which concepts can be interpreted, practically applied and arranged in systems of thought. One might assume at first sight, then, that the variety and flexibility of political thought and the morphological forms displayed by ideologies are derived from the essential contestability of political concepts. However, as we shall see, the inverse is in fact the case: essential contestability, as Freeden tells us, is a product of the inter- conceptual relationships brought about by the morphological property of ideological thinking. Before we discuss Freeden’s theory of ideological morphology in more depth, however, we must revisit Gallie’s original thesis of essential contestability, on which Freeden’s approach to ideological analysis is largely dependent.

Essential contestability In his seminal essay ‘Essentially Contested Concepts’, Gallie sets out to explain the nature of those conceptual terms of which there is ‘no one clearly definable general use’ (Gallie, 1956: p. 122). Such concepts mean different things to different people and this inevitably leads to conceptual dispute. Often, argues Gallie, it is likely that the position of each party is supported by a perfectly robust body of argument and evidence and that these disputes cannot simply be attributed to different readings of the evidence: they are characteristically irresolvable (ibid.: p. 123). In such cases we are dealing with essentially contested concepts, ‘concepts the proper use of which

9 inevitably involves endless disputes about their proper uses on the part of their users’ (ibid.).

Ultimately, Gallie delineates seven conditions of ‘essential contestability. First, a concept must be ‘appraisive’; it must connote some kind of valued achievement (ibid.: p. 125). The concept of ‘democracy’, for instance, recognisably signifies the achievement of a democratic state of affairs, irrespective of its proponent’s notion of what that entails. Second, this achievement must be ‘of an internally complex character’; it must be the object of potentially multiple descriptions. Third, any explanation of the concept’s worth must refer to the relative importance of its components (ibid.). To take ‘democracy’ again as an example (for both the second and third conditions): some may consider the concept to constitute the power of the citizenry to choose their government, while others may emphasise the principle of self-government as a more important facet of a democratic society. There are numerous other ways in which ‘democracy’ can be interpreted, but the nature of one’s interpretation rests on the relative import one ascribes to the concept’s internal components. Fourth, the concept must be ‘open’ in character; it must be amenable to modification in changing circumstances (ibid.). In the case of democracy, the attainment of a democratic society is always liable to such permutation. The expansion of the suffrage to include women, for instance, represents but one clear example of this. Fifth, each party must recognise that its own use of the concept is opposed by those of others and appreciate to some extent the nature of such other uses (ibid.). Sixth, the concept must be derived from an ‘original exemplar’, the authority of whom is ‘acknowledged by all the contestant users of the concept’ (ibid.: p. 131). With the concept of democracy, as Gallie notes, users may invoke the authority of ‘historically independent but sufficiently similar traditions’, all of which are in some way ‘anti-inegalitarian’ in character (ibid.: p. 136). The seventh and final condition stipulates that, for an essentially contested concept to exist, the perpetual and varied nature of the dispute must enable ‘the original exemplar’s achievement to be sustained and/or developed in optimum fashion’ (ibid.: p. 131). Perhaps, explains Gallie, the concept of democracy does not comply with this final condition, since it is more likely that the mutual recognition of contestability by the disputants would ‘help fan the flames of conflict’ (ibid.: p. 137). However, concepts need not fulfil all seven conditions with the utmost precision. Rather, the question, states Gallie, is ‘do they

10 conform to [the] conditions sufficiently closely for us to agree that their essential contestability explains – or goes a very long way towards explaining – the ways they function in characteristic … arguments?’ (ibid.: p. 132).

The idea of essential contestability – albeit in a somewhat developed form (see Connolly, 1974; Freeden, 1996: pp. 55-60) – is central to Freeden’s approach, since it accounts for the diversity and flexibility of political thinking that provide the basis for his morphological model of ideologies. However, whereas Gallie sees essential contestability as a product of the intrinsic complexity of concepts themselves, Freeden views the phenomenon as a product of the inter-conceptual relationships that are formed when political concepts are arranged in an ideology’s morphology, in a system of thinking about politics. As noted by Iain MacKenzie, the essential contestability of concepts is not simply the result of our inability to agree on the meaning of key political terms, but is ‘derived from the fact that the meaning of concepts changes, depending on the relationships concepts are thought to have with each other’ (MacKenzie, 2003: p. 10). Morphology therefore precedes and indeed is the basis for the essential contestability of political concepts.

The morphology of concepts The idea of morphology is one which applies on a more fundamental level than that of the ideology: it can be used to understand the internal complexity of political concepts themselves. As demonstrated by Gallie, political concepts are more complex than merely the words that are used to convey them; they cannot be understood simply in terms of their distinct etymologies. Rather, meaning is determined by usage and is therefore subject to alter according to the context in which a concept is deployed. As we have seen, in order for political concepts to be subjected to a range of usages (in order for them to be essentially contested), they must necessarily consist of multiple sub-conceptual features or components; they must be internally complex. In Freeden’s scheme, this complexity requires that we understand the morphology of political concepts (the pattern created by a concept’s internal components) as consisting of ‘both ineliminable features and quasi- contingent ones’ (Freeden, 1996: pp. 61-62); they must contain some components which are constant and some which are temporary or changeable but equally necessary. A feature is ineliminable ‘merely in the sense that all known usages of the

11 concept employ it, so that its absence would deprive the concept of intelligibility and communicability’, while simultaneously, ‘the concept cannot be reduced to its ineliminable component’ (ibid.: p. 62). Despite the fact that the removal of a concept’s ineliminable component inevitably brings about its collapse, without additional features it remains a somewhat vacuous entity, devoid of any significant meaning. In order to explain this dynamic Freeden invokes the analogy of the ‘concept’ of the table. He notes that while all tables have one ineliminable feature – a raised level surface – the property of raised levelness alone is insufficient to communicate a full concept, since it gives us no information as to what the table looks like or how it functions: ‘The surface may be brown, it may stand on four legs, and it may be made out of wood’ (ibid.: p. 65). None of these attributes is essential to the concept of a table – ‘we can dispense with any of them and yet may still have a table’ (ibid.) – but nor are they immutable: if the surface of a table is not brown it must be another colour. If it does not stand on four legs it must be supported by more or fewer than four legs, or else be raised from the floor by some other means. Equally, if it is not made of wood it must be fashioned from some other material. ‘Those categories are necessary, while their particular instances are contingent’ (ibid.: p. 66), explains Freeden. The cogency of a concept demands that certain other features, other than and additional to the ineliminable component, are necessary. While these features remain non-specific in the first instance, the categories to which they correspond often must be satisfied in some form or another. In this way, additional components serve to make sense of the ineliminable core and furnish the concept with proper meaning.

Particular concepts imply particular categories. Take the concept of liberty. It seems reasonable to assume, as does Freeden, that the notion of non-constraint constitutes the ineliminable component of the concept of liberty (ibid.). But the very existence of ‘liberty’ demands that certain other categories are addressed: ‘liberty requires the notion of a subject, it requires the idea of obstruction, and it may require an evaluation as to its desirability’ (ibid.). These and others are questions (categories) which have to be addressed in order for a ‘full’ concept to be articulated. The way in which they are addressed may vary according to the particular usage of the concept in question – the subject of liberty may be the individual, or it may be a social group, for instance – but, logically, they necessitate additional components in some form. In

Freeden’s terms, therefore, these additional features are ‘logically adjacent’ to the ineliminable component (ibid.: p. 68).

But logical adjacency cannot account for all of the ways in which a concept can be extended or fleshed out; not all additional components follow logically from the ineliminable core. Though logical adjacency places some constraints on the possible additional content of a concept, it does not always allow for this content to be specifically defined. Put differently, while it narrows the number of logical options from which additional features may be drawn, logical adjacency does not necessarily specify the choice amongst them. Indeed, there must be some other function which allows concepts to be fully communicated, some method by which the additional components are selected from the options provided by logical adjacency. Moreover, there may also be additional features whose adjacency is not logical, which are not necessitated by the core element. These two instances are accounted for by the notion of ‘cultural adjacency, which imposes further constraints on the morphology of political concepts’ (ibid.: p. 69). The specifics of concepts’ internal formations are shaped by ‘culture’, which refers to ‘temporally and spatially bounded social practices, institutional patterns, ethical systems, technologies, influential theories, discourses, and beliefs’ (ibid.: pp. 69-70). Cultural adjacency works in two ways. Firstly, it operates within a framework imposed by logical adjacency in order to select one from multiple logical but potentially contradictory possibilities. To use Freeden’s example: ‘the cultural translation of the concept of rights into civil and political rights is only one logical possibility, but in the Western political tradition it would be inconceivable not to include them in any reasonable discussion of the term’ (ibid.: p. 70). Secondly, it serves to introduce elements which do not follow logically from the ineliminable component. These additional elements are the products of ‘specific historical and socio-geographical phenomena’ (ibid.: p. 72). They may appear to contradict the core, but their usages are nevertheless regarded as legitimate in a specific time and place. Hence, ‘some versions of liberty will allow for force to be used in order to attain the behaviour considered consonant with non-constraint’ (ibid.: p. 71).

To reiterate: the morphology of a political concept is comprised initially of an ineliminable component which is integral to all known uses of that concept. It is

13 elaborated by additional features which are selected by processes of logical and cultural adjacency. This selection process provides the basis for concepts’ essential contestability, since different usages of a concept select or emphasise different features. This is why the seemingly fixed meaning of a concept can alter from one usage to the next.

The morphology of ideologies and ‘decontestation’ Ideologies – our ways of thinking about and understanding political life (ibid.: p. 3) – are made up of essentially contested political concepts. As such, concepts often take on different meanings when deployed within different ideologies, since each ideology gives priority to different components within them. Thus equality to a socialist is not the same as equality to a liberal, just as a liberal’s version of liberty is likely to be quite different from that of an anarchist. We are able to observe a shift in meaning between one usage of a concept and the next; concepts’ meanings are dependent on their context.

According to Freeden, the contexts of political concepts equate to the ‘idea- environment in which they are located’ (ibid.: p. 73). Put differently, the meaning of a concept is determined largely by its location in relation to other political concepts. Relationships between concepts occur when they are arranged in a system of concepts, or an ideology. Ideologies, according to Freeden, are ‘characterized by a morphology which displays core, adjacent and peripheral concepts’ (ibid.: p. 77). Taking liberalism as an example, he suggests that one might observe liberty within the core, with human rights, democracy and equality adjacent to it, and nationalism on the periphery. In the same way that the communicability of individual political concepts depends on the existence of certain features which are additional to the ineliminable component, ‘the existence of concepts adjacent to the ideological core is essential to the formation of an ideology’ (ibid.: pp. 77-78). Furthermore, the processes of logical and cultural adjacency which occur within singular concepts are equally active within the framework of the ideology. Within the morphology of liberalism, for instance:

it would be evident that liberty would be given a particular meaning – self- determination – because of its close association with democracy, while conversely, democracy may be given a particular meaning – limited popular government –

because of its structural interlinkage with liberty. So while the concepts of democracy and of liberty each have their ineliminable cores, they are filled out in a distinctive way due to their mutual proximity. (ibid.: p. 78)

In this way, ideologies seek to ‘decontest’ the meaning of concepts so that they are attached to singular, preferred meanings. This is a primary function of ideologies: to win control over the meanings of key political terms in order to legitimise a certain political agenda. Ideologies achieve decontestation by negating other logically possible meanings. To borrow an example from Freeden, in J. S. Mill’s On Liberty, the mutual proximity of the core concepts of liberty, individualism and progress ensures that they hold each other in check, that their meanings remain fixed. While they co-exist, liberty, for instance, is prevented from ‘gravitating towards licence’, and individualism from ‘signifying vicious and anti-social competition’ (ibid.: p. 145). Further decontestation of the core is eventuated by way of its relationship with the adjacent and peripheral concepts, which serve to give further shape to the ideology as a framework for thinking about and acting out political life.

This leaves the question as to how we identify an ideology’s core, adjacent and peripheral concepts. For a concept to be part of the ‘ineliminable core’, suggests Freeden, it must by its removal cause the core to collapse by changing ‘the peculiar pattern created by [the core concepts’] intermeshing’ (ibid.: p. 153). This qualification seems somewhat unsatisfactory, since it can, as one commentator has put it, be ‘trivially satisfied by any idea defined in terms of its connection with others’ (Adams, 1998: p. 816). Despite the lack of a specific and formulaic definition, however, we are able to glean from Freeden’s extended prescriptions a more operable definition of our own. A core concept constitutes a basis for an ideology’s fundamental political focus at a macro level. It provides the basic principles from which an ideology’s political objectives are derived, and is inextricable to it;2 its absence renders the ideology unrecognisable as that to which it pertains. One might argue, for instance, that a liberalism which does not make substantial appeals to the concept of liberty is in fact no liberalism at all – liberty thus represents a core concept within the morphology of liberal ideology.

2 Strictly speaking, a concept can, under certain conditions, migrate from a core position, ‘either temporarily or in the course of historical and spatial change’ (Freeden, 1996: p. 83). Some core concepts, however – such as liberty in liberalism – remain fixed within the core. 15

Freeden asserts that the relationships between adjacent and core concepts are ‘vital to the articulation of an entire ideology’ (Freeden, 1996: p. 78); the adjacent concepts play a role in shaping the core. In fact, adjacent concepts within an ideology behave in much the same way as the additional features within an individual concept which serve to substantiate the ineliminable component. An adjacent concept, by way of its relationship to the core, gives the ideology ‘greater logical precision and cultural shape’ (Hazareesingh, 1997: p. 46) and makes prescriptions which allow for the core to be manifest as a practical political programme. The concept of democracy in nineteenth-century liberal ideology is a good example of an adjacent concept. Its adjacency is both logical, since it can be inferred from traditional liberal views on individuality and self-development, and cultural, insofar as the issues of enfranchisement and representation were very much characteristic of the political discourse at that time (Freeden, 1996: p. 154).

Peripheral concepts serve to ‘add a vital gloss to [an ideology’s] core concepts’ (ibid.: p. 78). There are two types: marginal and perimeter. When a concept exists on the margin its importance to the core is ‘intellectually and emotionally insubstantial’ (ibid.). The margin relates to the level of significance of a political concept at a certain moment, as concepts may sometimes migrate from core to marginal positions (and vice versa). Analysis of the margin (in relation to the core) thus facilitates understanding of the nature of an ideology’s position at a particular point in time according to its varying emphases on different concepts. A marginal concept, though it in no way determines the central principles of an ideology, may come into play given specific conditions or circumstances. The notion of public ownership – especially in the financial sector – would usually be regarded as antithetical to neoliberal principles, for instance, yet in response to the global financial crisis of the late 2000s, many governments otherwise committed to a laissez-faire approach enforced temporary emergency measures which incorporated public ownership of banks and other financial institutions.

The perimeter ‘reflects the fact that core and adjacent concepts are located in historical, geographical and cultural contexts’ and refers to ‘additional ideas and concepts that straddle the interface between the conceptualisation of social realities and the external contexts and concrete manifestations through which those

16 conceptualisations occur’ (ibid.: p. 79). Put differently, perimeter concepts constitute relatively concrete ideas which allow for ideologies to surpass the generality of core notions such as ‘liberty’ and enable them to ‘gain relevance for specific issues, to incorporate and identify significant facts and practices, to embrace external exchange, and to provide the greater degree of precision necessary to interpret the core and adjacent concepts’ (ibid.: p. 79-80). Accordingly, perimeter concepts often take the form of specific policy proposals rather than fully-fledged political concepts. The perimeter concept enables an ideology to relate to specific issues and events in real time; it gives concrete meaning to the abstract core concepts by way of providing practical policy proposals and political objectives. A socialist, confronted with the material problem of poverty, for instance, might advocate the redistribution of wealth through taxation as the principal method by which to achieve her goal of economic equality (ibid.: p. 431).

Methodology in the history of political thought: the Cambridge School and Begriffsgeschichte Freeden’s work on ideologies is arguably the most innovative and important development in the field in recent decades. However, in order to gain an appreciation of the significance of ideological morphology, and of my reasons for utilising it in this study, it is important to locate Freeden’s framework in terms of the wider methodological debate on ideologies and the hermeneutics of political thought in general. These debates principally concern the legitimacy of the notion of the concept as the primary unit of analysis in the study of political thought, a thesis which has been the subject of some dispute but which is fundamental to Freeden’s work. My purpose here is to consider the various perspectives, to defend Freeden’s position and to demonstrate its suitability for the purpose of this project: to capture an anarchist concept of solidarity.

Contextualist historians of political thought such as Quentin Skinner insist that, rather than political concepts, it is the aspect of authorial intention – ‘what a given agent may be doing in uttering his utterance’ (Skinner, 1969: p. 61) – on which we should focus in order to properly understand a text. According to Skinner, to focus on a concept as a basic unit of analysis is to allow for the statement or utterance to be removed from the very specific context in which it was produced and therefore to

17 potentially skew the author’s intended meaning. All concepts are speech-acts which take place within specific, non-replicable linguistic contexts. To write a history of a concept, or even to attempt to study multiple usages of it, is therefore impossible, since a concept really occurs only once. A concept is not a timeless, homogeneous idea which can be traced through long periods of human thought, but rather a temporal action limited absolutely by its linguistic context and which bears resemblance to nothing but that to which its creator may possibly have been referring. Analysis of concepts – or ‘speech-acts’ (see Austin, 1962) – must therefore be conducted at a synchronic level only, according to their particular usage at one point in time. Skinner’s approach is, amongst others’ (see Pocock, 1972), one of the definitive – and certainly the most explicit – statements of methodological procedure to emerge from the so-called ‘Cambridge School’ of the history of ideas.

However, there are those who defend the idea of the concept as the basic unit of analysis. Whilst Skinner maintains that the context in which a concept is used is fixed and that to abstract it from that context therefore serves to obscure the meaning, Reinhart Koselleck, pioneer of the German method of Begriffsgeschichte (conceptual history), contends that, despite deviations between one usage and the next, ‘linguistic recycling ensures at least a minimum degree of continuity’ (Koselleck, 1996: p. 63). In contrast to Skinner’s preferred approach, Koselleck argues that synchronic analysis should be conducted in tandem with a diachronic approach which locates concepts in terms of the ways in which they have developed over an extended period of time. The analyst must marry an exploration of the criteria that impel a writer to use concepts in one way rather than another (the synchronic) with an appreciation of the fact that some concepts’ applications are largely unchanged while others carry difficulties for new users because of conflicting meanings in previous uses (the diachronic). The most important lesson to be learned from Koselleck’s work is that some ideas and concepts are, contrary to Skinner’s argument, long-lasting, since ‘no author can create something new without reaching back to the established corpus of the language, to those linguistic resources created diachronically in the near or more remote past and shared by all speakers and listeners’ (ibid.). Prior knowledge of language uses is a prerequisite for understanding any form of linguistic communication. To create a new use is therefore to push against the ‘diachronic thrust’ of a word, term or concept. Even so,

18 what is new can only be understood in terms of what is not; there must be some recurring feature or accepted meaning which enables the user and her audience to talk about the new usage. There are therefore ideas and concepts which are long- lasting, which do have diachronic lives and, as such, the notion of ‘the concept’ as the basic unit of analysis represents a legitimate premise on which to base a methodological approach.

Freeden’s approach is based on exactly this premise. Though he acknowledges the importance of concepts’ synchronic meanings, he does so with an appreciation that concepts ‘exist in the “real world” of time and space and [that] their meanings derive in part, though not completely, from that world’ (Freeden, 1996: p. 51). As for the diachronic aspect, he stresses that political concepts are ‘notable for their strong historical grounding’, and that ‘historical continuity plays an important role in organizing the political thinking of the members of a society’ (ibid.: p. 52). Thus, as Freeden himself argues, ‘Skinner’s misgivings are unwarranted’, for not only do the meanings of concepts endure over extended periods of time, further, ‘we may deliberately wish to apply current perspectives and concerns to previous societies in order to tease out aspects of their thought and behaviour about which they could have had no way of knowing’ (ibid.: p. 102).

Freeden’s critics Appreciation of the wider debate on the epistemological and hermeneutic aspects of the study of political thought helps us to locate Freeden’s contribution in relation to other methodological schools in the discipline. However, within the more specific field of ideology studies, Freeden’s work has been subject to more direct critique. Here, in order to pinpoint some of the more specific potential weaknesses in the morphological approach, I will consider a range of criticisms which have been aimed specifically at Freeden’s methodological procedure. In doing so, I hope to demonstrate an appreciation of some of the potential pitfalls involved in the process of operationalising a morphological framework for analysis in this study.

A recurrent criticism of ideological morphology has stemmed from its comparison with Marxisant conceptions of ideology3 which have generally viewed the phenomenon as a ubiquitous set of false ideas which dominates social and economic life in capitalist society. Broadly put, according to critical conceptions, ideology is a tool wielded by the ruling class in order to distort the masses’ view of the world and consequently to legitimise the capitalist mode of production and its corresponding political system. Following these assumptions, the study of ideology should therefore consist in a critical examination which seeks to expose the falsities and deceptions inherent to ideology. Freeden’s conception, on the other hand, offers a more neutral reading of ideologies, viewing them as varied and distinct assemblages of political concepts used to interpret and shape the political world. In Freeden’s scheme, the student of ideologies should operate from a more detached epistemological perspective (MacKenzie, 2003: p. 12). Matthew Humphrey characterises the morphological approach as stemming from an ‘inclusive’ or ‘neutral’ conception of ideology, in that its scope is far broader than ‘restrictive’ or ‘critical’ conceptions such as those which might be loosely designated as ‘Marxist’ (Humphrey, 2005: p. 237). Humphrey identifies in Freeden’s method, as have many critics, the lack of an evaluative capacity, the fact that it serves more as a descriptive framework than as a critical one. Whilst the critical theorist seeks to uncover the distortion she perceives as inherent to ideological thinking, the morphological analyst engages in interpreting and classifying ideologies according to their conceptual structures. Critics of the morphological approach have argued that, since it does not consist in the uncovering of falsehoods and relations of domination, it serves to distract us from important social problems and prevents the analyst from carrying out her ethical obligation ‘to make a liberating intervention by unmasking hidden forms of oppression’ (ibid: p. 238). A similar point has been raised by Manfred Steger, who argues that the analyst of ideologies must not attempt to detach analytic practice from political reality, since the process of analysis does not occur in a political vacuum but rather within a specific political context. In this sense, it is arguable that ideological morphology presumes to operate from some neutral theoretical plane which in reality is impossible to achieve. As such, argues Steger, the researcher

3 Note the use of ‘ideology’ in the singular (as opposed to Freeden’s preferred ‘ideologies’), which connotes an all-encompassing phenomenon, rather than one of a multitude of distinct patterns of political thinking. 20 need not, indeed should not, shy away from recommending ‘political action against what they identify as oppressive practices tied to particular ideational systems’ (Steger, 2005: p 26).4

These concerns do hold some weight. It is true that the seeking of truth and the exposing of malign social and economic relations should be seen as important priorities by political theorists. However, although Freeden detaches his analytical project from the emancipatory intentions propounded by critical theorists, it is not clear that his morphological framework entirely inhibits the discovery of ‘truth’, albeit a notion of truth which operates at a higher level of abstraction. For, as Humphrey points out, although it is not an explicitly stated goal of the morphological analyst to uncover oppression, domination or injustice, the ‘truth’ revealed by conceptual morphology is one which concerns ‘the nature and conceptual architecture of political thought’ (Humphrey, 2005: p. 240). It is not that morphological analysis does not reveal a ‘truth’ as such; it is simply that it reveals a different kind of truth to that which is sought by many critical theorists. In this sense, Freeden’s approach can be said to display a ‘critical’ aspect in that it seeks to ‘dig beneath the surface manifestations of political thought in order to reveal the underlying conceptual structure’ (ibid.). Despite this, the fact remains that in following Freeden’s approach the analyst does not find herself in a position to make the kind of liberating intervention prescribed in expressly critical frameworks – ideological morphology is just not that kind of practice. It is not and was never intended for such a purpose. It does not follow, however, that morphological analysis is of no use as an explanatory framework. Indeed, Freeden’s approach directly addresses the interface between political ideas and action, an enterprise which remains integral to aiding our understanding of the political world. Although the juxtaposition with critical theory serves well to highlight some of the potential weaknesses of conceptual morphology, it is difficult not to conclude, as does Humphrey, that the disparities between critical approaches to ideology and inclusive conceptions such as Freeden’s are such that the two are all but incomparable. Indeed, ‘it may be more fruitful to consider them as

4 The notion that the researcher has an ethical responsibility to recommend certain courses of political action is one which Freeden explicitly rejects: ‘While the function of ideologies is to guide practical political conduct, the analysis of ideologies … is not geared to directing or recommending political action’ (Freeden, 1996: p. 6). 21 two separate concepts (rather than different conceptions of the same concept) and accept that the two are engaged in radically different exercises’ (ibid.: p. 243).

Another common criticism of Freeden’s morphological approach is directed at his apparent analytical preference for political thought in the form of written texts at the expense of other, equally important manifestations of politics. Kevin Gillan notes that, despite his insistence on the action-oriented nature of ideological thinking, Freeden concentrates almost exclusively on the grand ideologies of liberalism, socialism and conservatism as represented by the works of their respective major thinkers, and does little in the way of analysing the ideas of political activists or the political thinking which emerges from social movements. Gillan terms these forms of thinking ‘orientational frames’ – close relatives of ideologies which serve specifically to make sense of political thought within and emerging from social movements (Gillan, 2008: p. 248). Furthermore, he contends that Freeden’s theory of decontestation may not hold when applied to orientational frames, since more often than not they are created in ‘collective situations within which structures of authority are quite loose’ (ibid.: p. 258). As such, the patterns of thought which are produced are not always made up of concepts whose meanings have been fixed absolutely (decontested); they may consist of an ‘accumulation of ideas that are more or less in tension’ (ibid.). The thesis of decontestation holds true in relation to established ideologies such as liberalism and socialism because they have been subjected to prolonged philosophical development over several generations; they resemble highly evolved forms of political thinking. This characteristic is largely absent from ideas which emerge from social movements, on the other hand, since they tend to be more spontaneous and less strongly rooted in established traditions of political thought.

Other commentators have identified further areas for which Freeden’s approach supposedly does not account. Both Aletta Norval and John Schwarzmantel have emphasised the failure of Freeden’s morphological conception of ideologies to account for the more everyday instances of ideological thinking. In a similar vein to Gillan, Norval notes Freeden’s tendency to focus on ‘the complex “thought-text” of ideology, rather than on objects, institutions, symbols and identities’ (Norval, 2000: p. 327), whilst Schwarzmantel observes how, to a large extent, the morphological

22 conception ‘leaves out, or at least underplays … the intensely practical, or institutional, side of ideologies’ (Schwarzmantel, 2008: p. 26). Indeed, according to Schwarzmantel, the fact that the central purpose of political ideologies is to mobilise support for a certain set of normative ideas about the constitution of the good society implies that they cannot be set apart from the political actors (political parties, social movements, etc.) which constitute their empirical manifestations. In this way an ideology is different to an abstract philosophy; it is not merely a set of ideas devised by an individual, but something whose function is to make a link between such ideas and political action in the real world (ibid.: p. 27). This leads Schwarzmantel to conclude that Freeden’s definition of ideology is not sufficient, since ideologies are not simply clusters of political concepts but rather are necessarily ‘embodied or realised in mass political movements, in political institutions of a governmental or oppositional kind’ (ibid.). As such, Schwarzmantel endorses the Gramscian conception of ideologies, which emphasises the link between abstract philosophy and empirical politics (see Gramsci, 2007). So whilst it remains admissible to attempt to understand ideologies in terms of their conceptual morphology, for Schwartzmantel, Freeden’s approach accounts for only one part of what constitutes ideologies and fails to appreciate them in practical terms as well.

Against this charge, Freeden’s position warrants defence. Schwartzmantel’s criticism is somewhat misplaced, for it assumes that Freeden conceives of the process of ideologies’ development as detached from the ‘real world’ of politics. Contra this accusation, for Freeden, ideologies engage in conceptual contestation precisely so that they may mobilise political language in favour of a preferred agenda. As Freeden himself puts it, ideologies’ ‘competition over plans for public policy is primarily conducted through their competition over the control of political language’ (Freeden, 2003: p. 55). Further, he gives ample allowance for the possibility – necessity, even – of (a) the mass or popular (re)production of ideologies, and of (b) framing such manifestations in morphological terms. The observation that Freeden’s own analyses of ideologies (particularly in Ideologies and Political Theory) depends largely on textual interpretation of their grand exemplars (liberalism via Mill, conservatism via Burke, etc.) does little to support the conclusions that he sees abstract theory as the sole crucible of ideologies’ manufacture, or that he ignores their bases in popular movements. Rather, it suggests that Freeden views certain

23 classical documents of ideological thinking (Mill’s On Liberty, for instance) as but one of multiple types of source material that may be examined in attempting to capture the conceptual essence of particular instances of ideologies. Indeed, elsewhere (see Freeden, 1999), Freeden’s use of New Labour as a case study for ideological analysis gives lie to the notion that he overlooks ideologies’ real-world manifestations. Moreover, he explicitly stresses the everyday nature of ideologies’ mass production and consumption, insisting that they are ‘produced by, directed at and consumed by [social] groups’ (Freeden, 1996: p. 22). Indeed, according to Freeden, ‘we are all ideologists’, in that we all necessarily form interpretations and understandings of the political world – however sophisticated or otherwise, however conscious and deliberate or otherwise. Thus, merely by virtue of our involuntary presence within a political environment, we all ‘produce, disseminate and consume ideologies’ (Freeden, 2003: pp. 1-2).

A third point of criticism to be levelled at ideological morphology concerns the narrowness of Freeden’s criteria for determining whether or not a body of political thought can be properly considered an ‘ideology’. Both Norval and Humphrey, along with Duncan Bell and Jason Glynos, argue that Freeden’s standard requires ideological thought patterns to display a level of conceptual complexity which excludes important instances of political thinking (Norval, 2000; Humphrey, 2001; Bell, 2002; Glynos, 2001). Humphrey takes Freeden to task for classifying Green political thought as a ‘thin’ ideology, an ideology which consists of just a few core concepts and which lacks the complexity of its ‘full’ counterparts (Humphrey, 2001).5 He argues that Freeden fails to acknowledge the true level of complexity of Green political thought and that, contrary to Freeden’s categorisation, ecologism warrants the status of a fully developed ideology. This may well be a valid observation. However, Humphrey’s example of Green ideology refers only to one very specific instance of alleged misanalysis on the part of Freeden. It is therefore important to consider that Freeden’s analysis of ecologism is not necessarily indicative of fundamental mechanical flaws within ideological morphology which precipitate the exclusion of important strands of political thought. Indeed, a more likely conclusion is

5 To qualify as a ‘full’ ideology, the –ism in question must ‘provide a reasonably broad, if not comprehensive, range of answers to the political questions that societies generate’. A ‘thin’ ideology, meanwhile, displays a ‘restricted core attached to a narrower range of political concepts’ (Freeden, 1998: p. 750). 24 simply that Freeden’s interpretation of ecological thought differs to that of Humphrey and those others who promote a ‘thick’ or a ‘full’ reading of Green ideology. After all, as Humphrey’s paper demonstrates, it is quite possible to analyse ecologism within a morphological framework and yet draw positive conclusions as to its ideological ‘fullness’.

Even so, the ‘full’/’thin’ distinction has been further scrutinised by Bell, who sees it as deriving from a false assumption on the part of Freeden concerning the notion of ideological ‘fullness’. Bell contends that Freeden’s conception of ideology and politics in general is overly state-centric, in that it is limited to ‘that which is cultivated within and functions inside the limits, either normative or legal-juridical, of the contemporary state’ (Bell, 2002: p. 224). As such, argues Bell, Freeden displays a tendency to downplay global and transnational thought-structures. As a consequence, Freeden tends to presume upon the fullness of ‘vertical’ (state-bound) ideologies, whilst misclassifying ‘horizontal’ (global/transnationally-oriented) ideologies as ‘thin’. According to Bell, the flaw in Freeden’s demarcation criterion is that it does not accord with the notion that ‘political totality and generality must surely embrace more than that which can be found within the state’ (ibid.: p. 226). An extension of the morphological approach should, asserts Bell, emphasise the distinction between the realms of the domestic and the transnational. Subsequently, when we consider the ideology in question afresh, in accordance with its own particular political remit, then it is possible to conceive of both vertical and horizontal ideologies as full ideologies.

Norval cites the work of post-Marxist theorists Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe as providing an alternative approach which she claims avoids the exclusion of less complex patterns of thought (see Laclau and Mouffe, 2001). In accounting for the ‘discursive constitution of political identities’, argues Norval, the theory of Laclau and Mouffe enables us to ‘focus on the manner in which ideologies that do not necessarily display the conceptual complexity of the core political concepts analysed by Freeden … may operate’ (Norval, 2000: p. 330). Whilst some aspects of the morphological approach may apply only to highly-evolved ideological forms, the post-Marxist approach goes beyond a merely conceptual analysis and, as such, can be used to understand less complex ideational and discursive formations.

Glynos repeats Norval’s concern that Freeden’s methodology requires ideologies to have an unusually high degree of stability and complexity. However, according to Glynos, whilst Freeden’s strict criteria for ideological status can appear exclusionary, to relax his criteria would render the classification ‘ideology’ meaningless, since it could then be applied to meaning systems of all kinds (Glynos, 2001: p. 194). Relying heavily on the work of Laclau and Slavoj Žižek (see, for instance, Laclau, 2000; Laclau and Mouffe, 2001; Žižek, 1994; 1997), Glynos promotes a ‘Lacanian’ approach to ideology which seeks to move beyond mere description of content, construction and socio-historic contexts. Analysis of ideology, according to Glynos, should seek to explain ‘how ideology grips its subjects … how ideology exerts its hold over us, given the specificity and contingency of socio-historical traditions and their systems of meaning’ (Glynos, 2001: p. 195). Clearly this echoes aforementioned criticisms of the morphological approach in that it emphasises the lack of a critical faculty. However, it also suggests a preference for something akin to the Marxist conception of ideology – the very conception that Freeden endeavours to circumvent.

A final direct criticism of Freeden’s morphological approach is one which bears some resemblance to the more general hermeneutic pitfalls outlined by Quentin Skinner. Mark Bevir characterises conceptual morphology as a ‘reified’ model of ideology, a conception which encourages the mapping of existing ideological instances onto the unchanging cores of established ideological traditions. (The parallel with Skinner lies in the similarity between Bevir’s notion of ‘reification’ and Skinner’s ‘mythology of prolepsis’ – see Skinner, 1969: p. 44.) While this process of matching different aspects of an instance of political thought with various ideologies and traditions provides the basis for ‘subtle and complex description’, explains Bevir, ‘the problem of explanation remains unresolved’ (Bevir, 2000: p. 281). Citing the example of New Labour as an ideological vehicle, Bevir argues that we cannot simply assume the relevant agents to have cherry-picked the party’s various ideological components from the established traditions of socialism, liberalism, etc. Even if we were to take this as given, we would remain ignorant as to why one particular conceptual ‘amalgam’ was given preference over other possible combinations. Bevir goes on to claim that reified models such as Freeden’s see ideologies as fixed constructs comprised of static, unchanging political concepts. As an alternative, he proposes a

‘decentred’ model, which focuses on how ideologies are inherited and modified over time – an aspect he claims is left unaccounted for by conceptual morphology (ibid.). This seems a somewhat unfair criticism. Although in Freeden’s scheme, the possible number of conceptual combinations is necessarily limited, the process of decontestation works in such a way that the limits are relatively loose; there are in fact myriad ways in which ideologies can combine different concepts in a morphology. Bevir also seems to ignore Freeden’s point concerning conceptual migration, which can, under certain circumstances, allow for concepts to move across an ideology’s morphology. This contradicts his claim that Freeden’s model relies on the notion that ideologies display cores which comprise sets of protected or fixed concepts.

As I have demonstrated in the literature review above, there are numerous potential difficulties in the operationalisation of Freeden’s ideological morphology as a framework for analysis. First, we must be aware of the limitations of the morphological approach in terms of its critical capacity. Despite Humphrey’s suggestion that, viewed in a certain light ideological morphology does display critical elements (Humphrey, 2005: p. 240), as a morphological analyst one must appreciate that one is inhibited from making pro-active recommendations for political action. Second, regarding the issue of conceptual complexity and ideological ‘fullness’, I would reiterate that the criticisms raised over Freeden’s classifications are concerned more with application than with fundamental methodological robustness. We must also consider the potential difficulties – identified by several commentators – in applying morphological analyses to the more empirical manifestations of ideologies and to less complex or less well-established forms of political thought. However, as we have seen, although Freeden himself has not yet offered thorough analyses of such instances, it has not been properly demonstrated that his framework is unsuitable for that purpose – quite the opposite, in fact, if we look, for instance, to Humphrey’s work on Green ideology (Humphrey, 2001). In any case, for the purposes of the current project, which, in precisely the same way as demonstrated by Freeden in Ideologies and Political Theory, focuses specifically on political thought in the form of major textual works, the non-inclusion of activists’ political thought, or of the practical aspect of ideology highlighted by Schwarzmantel, is inconsequential. This is not to say that serious analysis of anarchist activists’

27 ideologies does not constitute an important enterprise. On the contrary, particularly in their contemporary incarnations, anarchist ideologies – perhaps more so than most others – are subject to continuous and significant processes of ideational development and redevelopment courtesy of movement actors. Indeed, significant work on the global activist movement has been undertaken by numerous scholars (see Graeber, 2002; Day, 2005; Gordon, 2007a). Nevertheless, despite tendencies to characterise it as such (see Neal, 1997), the contemporary anarchist movement is not entirely ideologically detached from the tradition of classical anarchist thought. Indeed, Ryan Knight highlights the importance of ‘recognising the continuity of anarchism as a body of thought and practice’, arguing that the work of Bakunin in particular provides ‘insight into how [contemporary anarchists] might strengthen [their] … social movements, using theory, not jettisoning it’ (Knight, 2013: pp. 187, 186). Thus, in concerning itself specifically with the work of canonical anarchist thinkers, this study does not seek to play down the significance of recent and current anarchist practice. Rather, it operates from the assumption that anarchist ideologies generally display sufficient continuity with an established tradition of thought that we might look to said tradition for the purposes of ideological analysis. Further, it should be reiterated that the primary aim of the current work is not to present a morphological analysis of anarchist ideologies. It does not claim that the thinkers studied here are in any way representative of anarchist ideologies generally. If the research produces results which point to certain conclusions as to the conceptual composition of anarchism as such then they are of only secondary importance and, given the necessarily limited selection of source material analysed, must be treated with caution. The principal object of the work remains thus: to contribute to the contemporary scholarly debate on the nature and potentials of the concept of solidarity through the retrieval and reconsideration of anarchist conceptions. With this in mind, the analysis of four key thinkers presented here should be considered an initial contribution to this process of reappraisal, rather than an exhaustive or comprehensive account of anarchist solidarities.

Ideological morphology in this study Appreciation of the above criticisms provides a robust platform from which to conduct a methodologically sound analysis. Despite the weaknesses highlighted,

Freeden’s typology of core, adjacent and peripheral concepts, in addition to his notion of morphology and his dissection of the internal workings of political concepts themselves, provides the methodological grounding for a workable framework within which to conduct a thorough and precise analysis of concepts, ideologies and political theory in general. As such, ideological morphology seems infinitely compatible with the purposes of the present work. Freeden’s is a bespoke framework designed specifically for the analysis of political concepts and the systems of thought in which they operate and is therefore well-suited to an analysis of the concept of solidarity in anarchist thought. Although Freeden’s work explicitly references ‘ideologies’ rather than ‘theory’ or ‘thought’, his analytical framework remains applicable to the latter two, since ideology is not separate from political theory but a part of it, its everyday manifestation. Indeed, Freeden’s own analyses of liberalism, conservatism and socialism rely on ‘a selective use of sources’, namely case-studies of the work of prominent thinkers which comprise ‘clusters of thought’ (Freeden, 1996: pp. 139, 142), rather than on the views of everyday practitioners of ideologies. As we have seen, the method of ideological morphology encourages an analysis which takes place on multiple levels, examining the components of concepts, individual concepts, and systems of concepts. In the case of the present work, this would enable one to gain an understanding of both the sub-conceptual features from which the concept of solidarity is made up and the way in which solidarity can be located in terms of its relationship with other concepts within the morphology of anarchist thought.

The aim of my analytical project is ultimately to determine whether or not there is a distinctive ‘anarchist’ concept of solidarity. In order to reach a conclusion either way, it will be necessary to collate the results of the analysis and to observe the extent to which the selected ‘anarchist’ thinkers have attempted to communicate a consistent and coherent concept and the ideational shifts that occur between one and the next.

The enquiry is naturally focused specifically on each thinker’s concept of solidarity, but also attempts to locate each thinker’s concept in relation to its wider idea- environment. The analysis therefore takes place on two levels: first, at the sub- conceptual level, seeking to determine the internal components of each concept; second, at the ideological level, seeking to determine the way in which each concept

29 operates within its ideological morphology. In order to visualise this analytical process, it is useful to borrow Freeden’s analogy of the map (Freeden, 1996: p. 167). According to Freeden, an investigation of an ideology’s entire ideational structure can be thought of as a map of a very large area, but one which does not exhibit a highly detailed exposition of every inch of the morphological terrain. Indeed, it is simply not possible – at least not for the lone analyst – to construct an exhaustive topography of such a wide expanse of conceptual ground. If the analyst chooses to ‘zoom in’, however, and concentrate on a specific region of an ideology’s morphology, she is able to study individual concepts at a ‘higher level of magnification’ (ibid.). So, in the same way that an atlas of the world does not display the same level of detail as, say, an Ordnance Survey map of a small locality in rural England, the scope and depth of analysis enabled by the morphological method depends on the overall size of the conceptual area in question. One can either produce a general overview of the entire picture, or opt for a larger magnification and engage at close quarters with a specific concept and the particular processes of decontestation to which it is subject. It is not possible to conduct full analyses on both levels, argues Freeden, without devoting at least an entire volume of analysis to each instance of ideological exposition (ibid.). Nevertheless, I will attempt to incorporate some degree of triangulation here. For although in placing its focus on a singular concept (solidarity) this study is engaged primarily in a ‘high magnification’ approach, it will also be necessary to cover to some extent the wider morphology of each thinker’s work, specifically where certain concepts impact upon the decontestation of solidarity.

It is also important to note that there are certain practical issues, some of which are general and others which are specific to certain of the selected writers, which need to be flagged up before commencing the analysis. The most obvious of these relates to translation: Bakunin and Kropotkin were not principally Anglophonic authors. Although some of Kropotkin’s key works were written and published in English, Bakunin never published in the English language. Indeed, during his lifetime the majority of his key publications appeared initially in French and only occasionally in his native Russian. Unfortunately, therefore, my own limitations as a linguist render my reading of Bakunin somewhat reliant on the English language translations of his work, raising the possibility that mistranslation, or at least inconsistent translation,

30 may cause confusion over key conceptual terms. That said, the translations from the French, at least, should pose little difficulty – one might reasonably expect that virtually all French-English translators would translate terms such as ‘solidarité’, ‘liberté’ and ‘égalité’ invariably as ‘solidarity’, ‘liberty’ (or ‘freedom’) and ‘equality’ respectively. However, difficulties are perhaps more likely to arise in the event that quasi-synonymous words are equated to key conceptual terms. It is perhaps unlikely but certainly not inconceivable, for instance, that a translator may take ‘fraternité’ or ‘unité’ to mean ‘solidarity’, or for ‘autonomie’ or ‘autodétermination’ to mean ‘liberty’. In an attempt to negate such confusion, therefore, the translations of key terms (‘solidarity’, ‘liberty’, ‘equality’) have, where possible, been checked with the original publication. That said, there may be discrepancies when it comes to the translation of Bakunin’s elaborations on such key terms. In his recent biography of Bakunin, for instance, Mark Leier notes that in one particular collection of Bakunin’s writings edited by Sam Dolgoff, ‘translations vary in accuracy’ (Leier, 2009: p. 335). As such, it will be necessary to exercise some caution in this respect.

This issue of translation naturally leads us to consider the relationship between words and terms and abstract concepts or phenomena. This is an important issue for any scholar engaged in conceptual analysis. Furthermore it is an area with regards to which the work of Reinhart Koselleck may again be usefully consulted. Koselleck contends that concepts represent the links between language and real things or phenomena in the extra-linguistic world. Whilst concepts serve to indicate some form of external reality, they do so only by means which are provided by language (Koselleck, 1996: p. 61). Koselleck makes an important distinction between the semasiological (‘the study of all meanings of a term, word, or concept’) and the onomasiological (‘the study of all names or terms for the same thing or concept’) (ibid.: p. 64). For obvious reasons, it is important to consider the fact that one word may refer to multiple concepts, just as a single concept may be expressed by a number of different words, terms or phrases. With this in mind, the ‘heuristic challenge’, notes Freeden, becomes one of ‘deciding when a particular concept is being used at a different time or place’ (Freeden, 1996: p. 119). This study is necessarily engaged in an enquiry of a semasiological nature: its goal is to determine whether or not there is a distinctive ‘anarchist’ conception of solidarity, an enterprise which by definition must deal with the potentially multiple meanings

31 assigned to a single concept. The project’s onomasiological questions are less immanent, but equally important. For the sake of methodological rigour, it is crucial to anticipate the fact that various words or terms may bear close relation to the key term ‘solidarity’. As such, it is important from an analytical point of view to determine whether these quasi-synonymous terms – ‘fraternity’, ‘unity’, ‘interdependence’, for instance – are representative of discrete concepts in their own right or are in fact being used to indicate a concept of solidarity. Furthermore, whilst this endeavour necessarily involves the application of analytic attention to synchronic factors, in order to understand the variegated levels of meaning that are implied by concepts’ essential contestability it is also important to consider the historical development of concepts in terms of their ‘evolution from concrete to more abstract referents and consequently to greater open-endedness’ (ibid.: p. 120). Of course, it is this aspect of conceptual development which enables concepts to be used across multiple ideologies, albeit with a more pronounced reliance on perimeter concepts which then function to link them to specific political realities. Indeed, for two reasons, Freeden is perpetually inclined to stress the importance of the analytical marriage between the synchronic and the diachronic. First, because the existence of ideological thought is inevitably a temporal one; second, simply because a comparative approach lends itself so fittingly to the analysis of ideologies merely by virtue of the richness and variability of the ideological universe (ibid.: pp. 120-121).

To return the focus to solidarity: how are we to know whether or not the writer in question is consciously dealing with the concept? More broadly, does it matter whether a thinker is deliberately expounding a sophisticated political concept, or simply using or making reference to a particular word or term for other reasons? This question leads us to consider the relationships between ideology and unconscious and potentially rhetorical aspects and, further, how this relationship may impinge upon the analytic enterprise. It is a question which, helpfully, is directly addressed by Freeden, who insists that the study of ideologies must ‘apply both to the intentional and the unconscious’ (ibid.: p. 34). On rhetoric, Freeden emphasises the importance of the processes of both ideological production and consumption. The producers of ideology, he says, are commonly ‘assumed to use rhetoric as an inauthentic rendering of beliefs to which they subscribe cynically or not at all’ (ibid.: p. 35). This assumption does not necessarily hold true, he continues, since there is always the

32 likelihood that a rhetorical speech-act is in fact representative of more complex ideological positions which are actually held. For instance, rhetoric may often be used as a device to simplify such patterns for the sake of public presentation and consumption. Further, if the recipients of rhetoric are unable to distinguish between genuine political beliefs and the rhetorical, then each is likely to be equally significant in the process of opinion formation. Since the mass consumption of ideologies is of equal analytical importance as is their (largely concentrated) production, ‘the question of the sincerity of those beliefs, the motives and intentions behind their enunciation, the propaganda roles they are designed to play, are not directly pertinent to comprehending their effective function’ (ibid.: p. 36). There are others, too, that are loath to dismiss the significance of the rhetorical in the analysis of ideologies (see Geertz, 1993; Ricoeur, 1986), and Freeden’s position appears to be roughly consonant with that of Michael Billig, who argues that ideological thinking is itself inherently rhetorical and consequently that ‘the use of rhetoric will itself reflect the patternings of ideology’ (Billig, 1991: p. 3). Therefore, if we subscribe to this assumption, we need not be concerned with questions concerning the degree to which a speech-actor is conscious of or sincere about the speech-act in question; we can treat the potentially rhetorical and the unconscious as expressions of ideological beliefs.

This chapter has outlined in some detail the fundamental premises of Freeden’s methodology of ideological morphology. In conceiving of ideologies as distinctive configurations of political concepts, Freeden’s approach allows for an analysis which focuses on both the internal components of those concepts and the way in which they are shaped by their interlinkages with neighbouring concepts. This study will investigate both of these aspects in relation to the concept of solidarity in anarchist thought; in other words, in seeks to establish the sub-conceptual make-up of anarchist conceptions of solidarity and the way in which those conceptions are impacted by other concepts within the anarchist morphology. The next chapter consists in such an analysis of the concept of solidarity as expressed in the political thought of Bakunin.

3. Bakunin’s concept of solidarity

Rise like lions after slumber In unvanquishable number Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you – Ye are many – they are few.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Mask of Anarchy (Shelley, 2015)

Of the many pages of scholarship dedicated to the life and work of Michael Bakunin, more than a few have served to reinforce a quite distinct and not entirely complimentary caricature. More often than not, Bakunin is portrayed as a ceaseless rebel, as a revolutionary doer rather than thinker for whom the end of an organised and rigorously theorised anarchist society became obscured by the seemingly irresistible means of political agitation. For instance, on George Woodcock’s account, Bakunin’s frequent ‘extremities of act and speech produced passages of pure comedy’, whilst his contribution to anarchist thought is noticeably played down on the alleged grounds of ‘the thinness of his literary and theoretical claims’ (Woodcock, 1986: p. 122). Similarly, the great liberal philosopher Isaiah Berlin assessed Bakunin’s thought as replete with ‘glib Hegelian claptrap’ and ‘almost always simple, shallow, and clear’, concluding that there are ‘no coherent ideas to be extracted from his writings of any period’ (Berlin, 1978: pp. 107, 108, 111). Meanwhile, David Morland accuses Bakunin of purveying ‘an increasingly authoritarian brand of politics’ (Morland, 1997: p. 117), and Aileen Kelly goes so far as to condemn Bakunin as an ‘intellectual apologist for despotism’, whose rhetorical talents only invited his audience ‘to share in his self-deception’ (Kelly, 1987: p. 293). Given the nature of such coverage, it is no surprise that Bakunin’s popular image is at best one of a haphazard if heroic rebel; at worst of a delusional, instinctive and imperious fanatic with a predisposition for violence. Either way, the enduring perception is one which has served to distract quite sharply from his ideas, analysis of which, as Ruth Kinna confirms, has ‘too often given way to testimony of his

34 domineering, overblown, charismatic and childlike personality … in order to bolster claims about his, indeed anarchism’s, naive and illiberal tendency to utopianism and fondness for vanguards’ (Kinna, 2014: p. 19). It seems that the over-emphases on Bakunin’s character and his somewhat chaotic involvement in various revolutionary movements throughout his lifetime has served not only to discredit his own ideas, but also to encourage the stereotypical association of anarchism and anarchists with bomb-throwing, insurrectionary mayhem.

There have been attempts to remedy this trend. A number of serious, scholarly studies of Bakunin’s thought have been undertaken (most notably Pyziur, 1955; Saltman, 1983; Morris, 1993 and McLaughlin, 2002), and they have had some success in extracting a political theory which, although by no means systematic, is nevertheless discernible, original and important in terms of the development of anarchist ideas generally. Indeed, Bakunin was, in the words of socialist historian G. D. H. Cole, the ‘outstanding leader’ of the first international anarchist movement (Cole, 1954: p. 213), and whilst he may not have been the intellectual founder of modern anarchism (it is a matter of scholarly debate as to whether that title belongs to William Godwin or Pierre-Joseph Proudhon), his writings on anarchist theory were and remain exponentially more influential than his detractors would have one believe. As Eugene Pyziur has argued, the general view of Bakunin as having contributed little of any value to anarchist doctrine is misplaced, though it is worth noting that Bakunin himself was known to eschew pretence to any great philosophical prowess (Pyziur, 1955: pp. 15-16). Nevertheless, it is true that Bakunin’s writings are fragmentary, inconsistent, often incomplete and nearly always fiercely polemical. Whilst these traits have doubtless done much to bolster his image as an inferior thinker, as Pyziur points out, they do not necessarily ‘deprive him of the right to be considered as … an outstanding exponent of political theory’ (ibid.: p. 20). As Peter Marshall has indicated, Bakunin is prone to appeal ‘to abstract concepts … without properly defining them’, and he often falls back on crude clichés which reinforce ‘binary opposites of good and evil, life and science, State and society, bourgeoisie and workers’, and so on (Marshall, 1993: p. 265). Despite this, and although his tone is frequently rhetorical, that is not to say that Bakunin’s treatment of various political concepts is in any way unconscious, unsophisticated or insincere. Indeed, ‘for all the fragmentation, repetition and contradiction’, argues Marshall,

‘there emerges a recognisable leitmotif’ within Bakunin’s work that justifies his being considered a ‘profound and original thinker’ (ibid.: pp. 265, 263). Further, it is almost certain that Bakunin’s writing style is symptomatic of his roles as activist and propagandist, as well as that of political theorist. Anyhow, as was discussed in Chapter 2, rhetorical expression and ideological articulation are not necessarily mutually exclusive forms of political communication. In fact, it is perfectly possible for the former to be indicative of the latter, for instances of political rhetoric to signal more complex ideological forms. Moreover, it might be suggested that consideration of Bakunin’s work within a morphological framework brings into sharper focus a coherent system of thought. As the analysis demonstrates, it is certainly possible to decode from Bakunin’s frequent pronouncements on solidarity a full concept which, I argue, is integral to his political theory. The aim in this chapter is to ascertain precisely how Bakunin decontests that concept and the way in which it operates within the wider morphology of his ideology.

As the following analysis demonstrates, Bakunin’s concept of solidarity comprises one ineliminable component (as do all political concepts) and four additional, quasi- contingent components. These additional components serve to flesh out Bakunin’s concept of solidarity and they take on varying degrees of significance depending on the specific context in which the concept is used at any one time. This context is invariably coloured by a number of political, cultural, historical and/or theoretical factors which may cause certain components to migrate from less prominent to more prominent positions within the concept (or vice versa), allowing for its coherent application in a variety of empirical and ideational settings. This process of migration is aided by a similarly fluid movement of adjacent concepts within Bakunin’s ideology, which by their proximity to solidarity highlight certain of the latter concepts’ components so as to shift the emphasis of the concept as a whole.

The ineliminable component of Bakunin’s concept of solidarity (indeed, by definition, of all concepts of solidarity) refers to a bond between the individual and the collective. The four additional, quasi-contingent components are as follows: (i) mutual recognition; (ii) cohesion; (iii) fraternity and (iv) collective responsibility. As I have said, each of these components may take on greater or lesser importance depending upon the particular setting in which the concept is used at any one time.

Bakunin uses the concept of solidarity in two quite distinct ways. The first refers to his designation of solidarity as a ‘natural law’. Natural law is an important adjacent concept within Bakunin’s morphology. It concerns the identifiable patterns that are produced by the continual interaction of all things in the natural and social worlds. Bakunin frequently refers to solidarity as a natural law, as a clearly discernible pattern of human beings’ social behaviours. I have labelled his use of solidarity in this sense as ‘natural solidarity’, which in Bakunin’s scheme is produced by the social interdependence wrought by the need of individuals within a community to establish mutual recognition (a notion Bakunin borrows from Hegel). When Bakunin uses solidarity in this way, the morphological link between solidarity and natural law becomes increasingly important to the articulation of Bakunin’s ideology and to the decontestation of his concept of solidarity. Let us imagine for a moment Bakunin’s morphology as comprising various towns and cities interconnected by a network of roads. The towns and cities are representative of political concepts; the roads of the interlinkages between them. According to the analogy, Bakunin’s use of natural solidarity corresponds to an increase in the volume of traffic between the concepts of solidarity and natural law – specifically in a centripetal direction, from the adjacent concept to the core (from natural law to solidarity). The effect of this increased interconnection is that Bakunin’s concept of solidarity becomes subject to a proportionally greater ideational influence from his concept of natural law than it is from other concepts. This increased influence serves to promote certain components within Bakunin’s concept of solidarity to more prominent positions, which affects the decontestation of the concept accordingly. In the case of his use of natural solidarity, the component of mutual recognition is emphasised and the other components temporarily play a less prominent role in helping to make sense of the concept’s ineliminable component. So, when Bakunin invokes the ‘natural and social law of human solidarity’ (Bakunin, 1964: p. 264), at a conceptual level solidarity and natural law become more proximate. As a result of this proximity, solidarity’s internal components are configured in a certain way and the concept takes on a quite specific appearance – that of natural solidarity decontested as mutual recognition. Although Bakunin does himself refer to solidarity as a ‘natural law’, he does not always use the term ‘natural solidarity’ when deploying the concept in this way. For the sake of conceptual clarity, it must be stressed that ‘natural solidarity’ is a label that I have used to signal Bakunin’s use of solidarity as a natural law, as an

37 inevitable product of social development. The second section of the chapter is devoted to a thorough investigation into the way in which this concept is fleshed out through the Hegelian dialectic of mutual recognition.

Bakunin’s second usage of solidarity I have labelled ‘class solidarity’, which refers to the solidarity of the masses in their struggle against the bourgeoisie. In the third section, this usage of solidarity is framed with reference to Shlomi Segall’s notion of group-solidarity, or those solidarities which characterise oppositional and exclusive groups (Segall, 2003). This allows for an analysis which locates within Bakunin’s concept of solidarity the three further components mentioned above: cohesion, fraternity and collective responsibility. When Bakunin uses solidarity in this way, he conceptualises it with reference to a notion of class struggle which has quite specific permutations in terms of the decontestation of solidarity. Indeed, in the same way that his concept of natural law influences the decontestation of natural solidarity, Bakunin’s concept of class struggle plays a key role in that of class solidarity. When Bakunin uses solidarity in this sense, the adjacency of class struggle shapes the configuration of the former concepts’ components so as to emphasise notions of cohesion, fraternity and collective responsibility, and the concept takes on the distinctive appearance of class solidarity. Bakunin’s concept of class struggle does not require the detailed exposition that does his concept of natural law, since it is not nearly as peculiar to his own ideology. Suffice to say here that, for Bakunin, as for all socialist anarchists (and indeed Marxists), ‘class struggle’ corresponds to the ‘irreconcilable antagonism’ between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie which ‘results inevitably from their respective stations in life’ (Bakunin, 1992: p. 97). Put differently, it refers to the ‘struggle over exploitation and thereby the extraction of surplus value’ between capitalists and workers (Fraser and Wilde, 2011: p. 52).

In the final section, I locate Bakunin’s concept of solidarity within his wider ideological morphology, drawing upon a secondary literature in order to explore the way in which solidarity is interlinked with other concepts and the impact of those inter-conceptual relationships on both Bakunin’s notion of solidarity and his ideology more generally. This section of analysis is confined to an exploration of the interlinkage of solidarity with Bakunin’s other core concepts of liberty and equality,

38 for the relationship between the three is most crucial to the articulation of Bakunin’s ideology.

The first section of the chapter is given over to an exposition of Bakunin’s natural law theory, which is key to understanding his concept of natural solidarity.

Natural law Bakunin conceives of solidarity as a ‘natural law’, as an innate human capacity for sociability and thus an inevitable form of social interaction that results from the material process of natural evolution (Bakunin, 1970: p. 43n). The concept of natural law is vital to the decontestation of Bakunin’s core concepts, particularly that of solidarity. By way of its proximity to the core of Bakunin’s morphology, natural law provides the core concepts with a greater degree of precision. As such, it constitutes an adjacent concept within the morphology of Bakunin’s ideology. Given his classification of solidarity as a natural law, some exploration of Bakunin’s natural law theory is required in order to properly ascertain the way in which he understands solidarity.

Like that of Marx, Bakunin’s conception of reality is ‘dialectical, materialist and deterministic’ (Morris, 1993: p. 78). For him, the social world of human beings is viewed simply as the most sophisticated known development, as ‘the last great manifestation or creation of Nature upon this earth’ (Bakunin, 1964: p. 144). Bakunin’s philosophy seeks to emphasise the universal oneness of nature, to stress the inevitable direction of natural development ‘from the simple to the complex, from the lower to the higher, from the inferior to the superior’ (ibid.: p. 60). In God and the State (1882), he wholly rejects the idealist conception of the universe, condemning it as irrational and illogical and linking it to a religious or metaphysical political authoritarianism which ‘starts from divinity to establish slavery and condemn the masses to an endless animality’ (Bakunin, 1970: p. 48). For Bakunin, the materialist account not only provides the only framework within which to understand natural evolution and human social development; it also offers a philosophical basis for ‘the establishment of liberty’, and for ‘the full humanisation of society’ (Bakunin, 1970: p. 48; Bakunin, 1964: p. 68). In essence, Bakunin’s notion of natural law is founded on the fundamental assumption that the universe – comprising both the physical and

39 social worlds – is played out according to an inevitable pattern of events caused by the convergence of each and every natural force which occurs within it. ‘Nature’ thus constitutes an omnipotent force within the universe that dominates every aspect of existence; it is ‘the sum of the actual transformations of things that are and will be ceaselessly produced within its womb’ (ibid.: p. 53). More precisely, for Bakunin, each entity and being within the universe is engaged in a multidirectional relationship of interaction whereby it influences and is in turn influenced by every other entity or being. All things, argues Bakunin, ‘necessarily and unconsciously exercise upon one another, whether directly or indirectly, perpetual action and reaction’ (ibid.); there exists a constant process of cause and effect between them. For Bakunin, the summation of all of these interactions is equal to the dominant force in the universe; it constitutes nature itself. The level of interdependence perceived by Bakunin is such that he is led to conclude that nature itself can be fundamentally characterised by a form of solidarity: ‘All this boundless multitude of particular actions and reactions, combined in one general movement’, he argues, ‘produces and constitutes what we call Life, Solidarity, Universal Causality, Nature’ (ibid.). Order and harmony within the universe are ensured by the free functioning of natural laws, which ‘are not real except in so far as they are inherent in nature, that is to say they are not fixed by any authority’ (Bakunin, 1973: p. 208). ‘These laws’, says Bakunin, amount to ‘simple manifestations or else continual fluctuations of the development of things and of combinations of these very varied, transient, but real facts’ (ibid.).

Further, Bakunin claims, ‘Universal Solidarity, Nature viewed as an infinite universe, is imposed on our mind as a rational necessity’ (Bakunin, 1964: p. 53). Solidarity is not a ‘first cause’, therefore, but rather a product of the universal causality which represents the natural way of things (ibid.: p. 53-54). It follows from Bakunin’s materialist understanding of the universe that the patterns which arise from the perpetual process of mutual interaction (or ‘universal causality’) constitute ‘natural laws’. Each thing, according to Bakunin, has ‘its own peculiar form of transformation and action’, which is characterised by ‘a succession of facts and phenomena which invariably repeat themselves under the same given conditions’ (ibid.: p 54). In other words, the existence and development of all things and beings will inevitably undergo certain characteristic processes which are bound to be repeated in a regular

40 way. These patterns represent the laws which govern nature, and they apply to the social world just as they apply to the physical and natural worlds.

For Bakunin, human society, itself a component of the natural world, represents ‘the basis and natural starting point of man’s human existence’ (Bakunin, 1973: p. 145); it embodies human beings’ natural and inevitable mode of living. As such, just as the natural world as a whole is governed by a series of immanent laws, in the social sphere, in the realm of human society, natural laws rule. Indeed, Bakunin tells us, natural laws are ‘inherent in the social body, just as physical laws are inherent in material bodies’ (Bakunin, 1964: p. 166). Of these laws, solidarity is of particular significance. Indeed, according to Bakunin ‘the natural and social law of human solidarity’ represents the very essence of society itself, ‘for all social life is but the continuous mutual interdependence of individuals and masses’ (ibid.: p. 167).

Bakunin’s conception of reality as a process of natural evolution, and of human beings and human society as natural developments of that process lead him to the logical conclusion that as a part of nature, it is not possible for human beings to rebel against it. Indeed, he argues that ‘Man is not free in relation to the laws of nature, which constitute the first basis and the necessary condition of his existence’ (ibid.: p. 339). These laws, Bakunin writes, ‘pervade and dominate him, just as they pervade and dominate everything that exists. Nothing is capable of saving him from their fateful omnipotence; any attempt to revolt on his part would simply lead to suicide’ (ibid.). In Bakunin’s scheme, human beings are helpless to resist natural laws and so the notion of human actions being determined by ‘free will’ is a nonsense. Indeed, Bakunin expressly rejects the notion of free will, arguing that a genuine socialism must instead recognise that ‘All individuals, with no exception, are at every moment of their lives what Nature and society have made them’ (ibid.: p. 155). Bakunin’s view that the behaviour of human beings is essentially determined by natural and social forces leads him to conclude that moral behaviour is dependent upon the moral organisation of society, that in order ‘to make men moral it is necessary to make their social environment moral’ (Bakunin, 1964: p. 155). However, the absence of free will does not render human beings entirely malleable; Bakunin is not necessarily questioning the existence of a human nature per se. On the contrary, he sees human beings as bound absolutely by a very particular set of inherent dispositions and

41 capabilities. But whilst humans can never be conceived in complete isolation from nature, there is a sense, argues Bakunin, that ‘Man has emancipated himself; he has separated himself from animality and constituted himself a man; he has begun his distinctively human history and development by an act of disobedience and science – that is, by rebellion and by thought’ (Bakunin, 1970: p. 12). For Bakunin, it is these qualities – the tendency for rebellion, to not submit to external authority, and the capacity for rational thought – that mark us out as distinctly human.

It is noteworthy that Bakunin, in his holistic conception of nature, in his notion that human beings are an inextricable part of the natural world, pre-empts the concerns of later, ecological thinkers. Indeed, as Morris has noted, Bakunin’s writings on nature offer ‘in embryonic form, an ecological approach to the world, one that is materialist and historical, and stresses the essential continuity and organic link between humans and nature’ (Morris, 1993: p. 84). But although Bakunin recognises this fundamental continuity and insists upon the infallibility and all-pervasive character of natural law, he also accounts for the fact that humans are able to achieve a degree of control over the natural world. Whilst ‘nature’, or ‘universal causality’ is omnipotent by definition, the natural world conceived as human beings’ biophysical environment is of course amenable to a level of productive and creative interference (Morris, 2014: pp. 11-12). In fact, argues Bakunin (as does Marx), the attainment of a degree of control over the natural world is a pre-requisite of human freedom and development (Bakunin, 1970: p. 12).

As we have seen, Bakunin is convinced that natural laws pervade all that unfolds in both the natural and social worlds. Contrary to the popular misconception, then, as an anarchist, Bakunin is not opposed to authority per se (Newman, 2001: p. 38). Indeed, natural authority, as embodied in natural laws, Bakunin argues, is in fact an essential condition of our existence. To obey the natural laws of human society is thus to realise one’s humanity, to constitute oneself as a human being – it is, in short, to live according to and hence to fulfil our own nature. Natural laws, argues Bakunin, exert an inevitable power on the social world, a power which we are helpless to resist. ‘Indeed, revolt against these laws is not only non-permissible, but even impossible’, he insists, for even if we are unaware of them or of their influence, ‘we cannot disobey them, for they constitute the basis and the very conditions of our

42 existence’ (Bakunin, 1964: p. 239). Despite their pre-eminence and all-pervasive scope, however, for Bakunin, to obey natural laws is not to submit to a slave-like existence, or to subordinate oneself to another. Although we are ‘unconditionally the slaves of these laws’, Bakunin writes, ‘in such slavery there is no humiliation, or rather it is not slavery at all’ (ibid.: p. 239). For slavery, argues Bakunin, ‘presupposes the existence of an external master … while those [natural] laws are not extrinsic in relation to us: they are inherent in us, they constitute our nature, our whole being’ (ibid.). The distinction between natural authority and artificial authority thus rests on the presence of an external actor who serves to impose their own will on another. The exercise of artificial authority must involve both a legislator/enforcer and an obeyer; it is an oppositional and indeed a dialectical relationship which requires both a master and a slave. Put differently, artificial authority necessarily entails hierarchical social relations. As such, we are able to distinguish natural laws from laws of a political, juridical, civil or religious nature, or, put differently, those which are artificially constructed and enshrined in hierarchical institutions such as the church and the state. For Bakunin, the latter represent the edicts of arbitrary, illegitimate powers which are external to the human essence and which therefore impede the flourishing of human nature and the full development of human beings’ natural capacities. It follows that the institutions of government and the state are inevitably ‘hostile and fatal to the liberty of the masses, for they impose upon them a system of external and therefore despotic laws’ (ibid.: p. 240). To submit to the authority of natural laws, on the other hand, is to live according to the laws that reside within us as consequences of our peculiarly human existence.

The concept of natural law is of great importance to the configuration of Bakunin’s morphology. However, it is not a core concept, since it does not provide a basic principle from which Bakunin’s key political priorities are derived. Rather, natural law resides in an adjacent position, as it functions to place certain constraints on various concepts within the core so as to substantiate them and furnish them with a conceptual precision that readies them for practical application. Indeed, the interlinkage of natural law to Bakunin’s core concepts is vital for the decontestation of those concepts and thus to the articulation of his ideology generally. The notion of natural law is particularly relevant to solidarity, as the following discussion makes clear.

Natural solidarity: solidarity as mutual recognition According to Bakunin, amongst the most important natural laws is that of solidarity:

The inherent principles of human existence are summed up in the single law of solidarity. This is the golden rule of humanity, and may be formulated thus: no person can recognise or realise his or her own humanity except by recognising it in others and so co-operating for its realisation by each and all (Bakunin, 1972: p. 19)

For Bakunin, solidarity constitutes one of the most fundamental concepts on which human society is founded. He sees solidarity as the inevitable outcome of the need of human beings to identify their own distinctly human existence by identifying it in all others belonging to a community. As such, the above quotation clearly betrays the vivid Hegelian stripe throughout Bakunin’s writings;6 he can be seen to conceive of solidarity broadly in accordance with Hegel’s dialectic of mutual recognition (or the ‘master-slave dialectic’), whereby self-conscious beings recognise one another and subsequently themselves as self-conscious.

According to Hegel, ‘Self-consciousness exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it so exists for another; that is, it exists only in being acknowledged’ (Hegel, 1977: p. 111). As such, the self and the other ‘recognise themselves as mutually recognising one another’ (ibid.: p. 112). For Hegel, genuine self-consciousness and self-value is not possible but for this moment of mutual acknowledgement; as Simon Blackburn puts it, we are only able to truly ‘understand ourselves for who we are by incorporating our understandings of how we are regarded by others’ (Blackburn, 2008: p. 309). In other words, there needs to be an instance of mutual recognition; each person needs the other in order to establish awareness of themselves. In order to achieve a proper sense of self, individuals must become conscious of both their particular characteristics and their universal ones that are held in common with all other individuals. Or, to borrow Tony Burns’ description, ‘Hegel maintains that to be conscious of one’s self in one’s particularity, or as possessing a determinate social identity, is a necessary precondition for seeing oneself in one’s own universality; and vice versa’ (Burns, 2006: p. 95). Only by seeing oneself from the perspective of a self-realising other – or from the perspective of society generally – is one able to truly

6 Along with Proudhon, Feuerbach and Marx (and later Comte), Bakunin’s chief philosophical influence was undoubtedly Hegel (whom he considered ‘unconditionally the greatest philosopher of the present time’ – Bakunin, 1973: p. 47), or, more properly, the ‘Left’ Hegelianism associated with the young Marx and others which sought to mobilise Hegel’s dialectic against the bourgeois social order. 44 recognise one’s individuality; simultaneously, only by seeing oneself as a particular, unique individual is one able to recognise one’s place in a community. As Nathan Jun explains, for Hegel, this dialectical moment produces an ‘ethical substance’ which is shared by self-conscious beings in a community (Jun, 2014: p. 34). In Bakunin’s scheme, as we have seen, this very substance constitutes solidarity itself and it should be seen as both a necessary condition and a product of mutual recognition. Indeed, the two components are ‘symbiotic’, as Jun puts it: ‘ethical substance is constituted by the mutual recognition of self-conscious beings, and mutual recognition by self-conscious beings is made possible by their sharing ethical substance’ (ibid.). Consequently, as Gary Browning observes, ‘Hegel’s political theorising is intimately connected with an account of consciousness and the role of social recognition in its development’ (Browning, 1997: p. 144). In other words, solidarity is cultivated by the universally held need of individuals to achieve recognition from the perspective of the other; simultaneously, that same solidarity produces the very conditions in which that dialectical moment – mutual recognition – is made possible.

Bakunin’s concept of solidarity thus draws heavily on this aspect of Hegel’s thought, since in his view solidarity is produced by the process of mutual recognition. The notion of solidarity as mutual recognition also impacts upon Bakunin’s concept of freedom, via the morphological linkage between solidarity and freedom. Mutual recognition serves as the foundation of Bakunin’s claim that one is free only to the extent that all others about one are also free. ‘I myself am human and free’, he insists, ‘only to the extent that I acknowledge the humanity and liberty of all my fellows’ (Bakunin, 1973: p. 147). As such, he continues, with a firm nod to Hegel, a ‘slavemaster is not a man but a master’, and by ‘ignoring his slave’s humanity he ignores his own’ (ibid.). The realisation of genuine humanity and freedom depends upon this moment of recognition (or ‘acknowledgement’, as Bakunin sometimes puts it), which inevitably produces a natural solidarity since it creates interdependence between individuals. In a pamphlet titled ‘Solidarity in Liberty’ (1867), Bakunin writes that ‘thanks to the law of solidarity, which is the natural basis of all human society, I cannot be, feel, and know myself really, completely free, if I am not surrounded by men as free as myself’ (Bakunin, 1972: p. 21). Given this, he insists, the ‘true, human liberty of a single individual implies the emancipation of all’ (ibid.). In other

45 words, as Chiara Bottici has observed, according to Bakunin’s concept, ‘freedom can only be a freedom of equals’ (Bottici, 2014: p. 183). The interrelationship between Bakunin’s concepts of solidarity, freedom and equality is discussed in more detail later on in the chapter.

The dialectical method and the theory of mutual recognition are both clear and present features in Bakunin’s writings. The impact of ‘Left’ appropriations of Hegelianism on Bakunin’s ideas are self-evident, most obviously so in his 1842 pamphlet ‘The Reaction in Germany’ (see Bakunin, 1973: pp. 37-58). However, Hegel’s influence on Bakunin has, until now, only been drawn out in relation to his usage of the dialectic generally. This refers to the dialectical process of negation, encapsulated by Bakunin in his (in)famous formulation that ‘The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too’ (Bakunin, 1973: p. 58). Bakunin applied this theoretical process in a very practical sense; for him, statism amounted to the thesis, destruction or ‘amorphism’, as Pyziur puts it, to the antithesis, and federation in a new anarchist society to the synthesis (Pyziur, 1955: p. 126). Although Bakunin’s reliance on the Hegelian dialectic is made clear in much of the secondary literature, little scholarship has elaborated on the way in which Bakunin understands and deploys notions of mutual recognition, at least not in relation to his concept of solidarity. Morris notes that Bakunin ‘saw the relationship between individual and society as a “dialectical” one’, and that this relationship entailed ‘a unity-in- opposition’ (Morris, 1993: p. 93), but he does not refer to the relationship explicitly in terms of a concept of solidarity, as such. Accordingly, it is worth reiterating the point that Bakunin decontests solidarity in terms which explicitly denote a dialectical moment of mutual recognition. For Bakunin, solidarity between individuals – and between individuals and the wider collective – is forged when the individual comes to recognise his or her own identity and subjectivity as inextricable from that of other individuals and that of the community generally. At the same time, solidarity provides the necessary social conditions for that realisation to occur. In Bakunin’s writings, solidarity constitutes a natural law, since it is an inevitable product of the naturally human tendency to strive for the recognition of self in others and in an ethical community. Mutual recognition thus constitutes a key component of Bakunin’s concept of solidarity.

To place this component within the context of the discussion of his theory of natural law, one can suggest with some conviction that solidarity, in Bakunin’s scheme, operates as a natural law. It is only through our obeying natural laws that we truly realise our own nature – that we achieve humanity – and solidarity is both the necessary product of and precondition for the inevitable quest for mutual recognition. So, for Bakunin, the realisation of our nature as human beings rests on a concept of solidarity. However, he insists that it is also embodied in individual freedom, without which human beings are unable to fulfil their inherent potentialities, and which is attained by the person who ‘obeys natural laws because he has himself recognised them as such, and not because they have been externally imposed upon him by any extrinsic will whatever, divine or human, collective or individual’ (Bakunin, 1970: p. 30). Bakunin’s notion of freedom is complex, and, like solidarity, it is a core concept within his ideological morphology. Given its proximity to solidarity, it plays an important role in the process by which that concept is decontested (as, simultaneously, does solidarity play a role in the decontestation of freedom). As such, the morphological relationship between these two core concepts requires some exposition and is explored later on in the chapter. Whilst this section has sought to capture Bakunin’s use of solidarity as a natural law (natural solidarity), the following section is devoted to an investigation into his second usage of the concept: class solidarity.

Class solidarity As we have seen, Bakunin’s first usage of the concept of solidarity refers to ‘natural solidarity’, the notion that solidarity constitutes an inevitable characteristic of human societies because of the way in which human beings’ essential nature is constituted. We saw how Bakunin, following Hegel, identified the peculiarly human need for mutual recognition as the source of a genuinely social solidarity which provides the foundation for an ethical community of self-conscious and free individuals. For Bakunin, the scope of such a notion of solidarity is necessarily universal since all human beings are subject to the fundamental need for recognition. This form of solidarity is, in theory, the property of society as a whole; it contributes to the cohesion and collective purpose of ‘the community’ in the broadest possible sense of that term (i.e. a ‘global’ or ‘human’ community).

Shlomi Segall offers a typology of two forms of solidarity which allows us to make sense of the distinction between this – Bakunin’s first usage (‘natural solidarity’) – and his second usage, which I will refer to as ‘class solidarity’. The first of Segall’s types of solidarity exists between individuals who belong to the same relatively exclusive group; he refers to this type as ‘group-solidarity’ (Segall, 2003: p. 13). By contrast, the second type may consist in relations that are extended ‘between individuals (or a group of individuals) and a collective to which they do not belong’. Segall refers to this type as ‘solidarity as sympathy’ (ibid.). Bakunin’s notion of natural solidarity is much closer to the second of Segall’s types, to solidarity-as- sympathy, for in its universality it allows for individuals to form solidaristic bonds that transcend traditional or existing social and cultural barriers. As such, it may involve – or rather, it probably or even necessarily will involve – some instance(s) of individuals seeking to establish and maintain solidarity with others who do not have membership of the same group(s) – ‘groups’ being understood as collections of individuals practicing a degree of cooperation in pursuit of their collective goals (Mason, 2000: p. 21). In fact, I would suggest that Bakunin’s notion of natural solidarity is even broader in scope than Segall’s notion of solidarity-as-sympathy, which, of course, may still exist between certain relatively exclusive groups that are nevertheless opposed by a further group or coalition of groups (such as allied groups/nations on either side of a military conflict). Rather, Bakunin’s universal notion of solidarity is entirely non-oppositional, it necessarily consists in an expression of oneness that does not correspond to a form of group unity that can be defined (or strengthened) by the presence of an antagonistic relation to another group or social entity. In fact, this non-oppositional quality is achieved not by forging bonds of social unity between groups necessarily, but rather by the dissolution of groups as such, by establishing one universal group, or at least by attempting to subordinate the attachments individuals have with smaller groupings and identities to those they have with the wider collective. Indeed, this aspect of Bakunin’s notion of solidarity constitutes a significant development of Hegel’s initial theory of mutual recognition, for, as Chiara Bottici has noted, it extends it ‘to humanity as a whole, a whole that transcends social, political and even historical borders’ (Bottici, 2014: p. 184). I have referred to solidarity in this sense, solidarity decontested as mutual recognition, as ‘natural solidarity’.

The second way in which Bakunin uses the concept of solidarity (‘class solidarity’, as I have called it) refers to that which is exercised by the proletariat in its historic economic struggle against the bourgeoisie. In fact, it should be noted that Bakunin’s use of class solidarity applies not just to the proletariat, but also to the peasantry and the lumpenproletariat (the unemployed, the homeless, common criminals, etc.). Bakunin consciously distances his own conception of the working class from that of Marx, for whom revolutionary agency lies solely with the urban, industrial, wage- earning proletariat (Marx, 2000: p. 253). Indeed, as is well documented, Marx’s attitude towards the peasantry is, at best, ambivalent; at worst, scornful, and he sees the lumpenproletariat as ‘The “dangerous class”, the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of old society’, whose members are more susceptible to ‘reactionary intrigue’ than to revolutionary class-consciousness (Marx and Engels, 2002: p. 231). By contrast, Bakunin identifies both the peasantry and the lumpenproletariat as potential proprietors of revolutionary agency. He argues that, despite its cultural conservatism and general prejudice towards urban workers, the peasantry constitutes a potentially revolutionary force by virtue of its own structural exploitation under capitalism (Bakunin, 1964: pp. 203-204). As for the lumpenproletariat, Bakunin sees that social class as one which is ‘almost unpolluted by bourgeois civilisation, which carries in its inner being and in its aspirations, in all the necessities and miseries of its collective life, all the seeds of the socialism of the future’ (Bakunin, 2002: p. 294). With this in mind, all subsequent references to the ‘working class’ or the ‘proletariat’ in this chapter should be taken to signify Bakunin’s inclusive conception of the masses.

‘The concrete, final solution to the social question’, Bakunin insists, ‘can only be realised on the basis of international workers’ solidarity’ (Bakunin, 1973: p. 175). Proletarian solidarity in class struggle is a necessary force of liberation, he argues; it enables ‘emancipation through practical action’ (Bakunin, 1992: p. 103). This action equates to ‘workers’ solidarity in their struggle against the bosses. It means trade- unions, organisation, and the federation of resistance funds’ (ibid.). The decontestation of Bakunin’s use of solidarity in this instance is dependent on the adjacent concept of class struggle. By its proximity to solidarity, the notion of class struggle places certain constraints upon the former concept so as to affect its decontestation in a particular way. Through its interlinkage with the concept of class

49 struggle, solidarity takes on an instrumental value. By ‘instrumental’, I refer here to the interests of the group (i.e. the working class) and not to the private interests of its individual members. In other words, class solidarity is of instrumental value in relation to the pursuit of the collective goals of that group rather than individuals’ self- interests, for instrumentality in relation to the latter is irreconcilable with solidarity by definition. As such, class solidarity constitutes the means by which progress towards certain political goals is to be attained. (Of course, it cannot constitute a final goal in itself, for Bakunin’s ultimate vision is one of a classless society.) Class solidarity for Bakunin is ultimately a revolutionary vehicle through which human emancipation is to be realised. The working class – or the exploited and oppressed masses more generally, when we include the peasantry and the lumpenproletariat – possess revolutionary agency because of their structural economic position under the capitalist mode of production; social transformation is in their material interests, relative to their current station. Within the context of a politics of class struggle, ‘solidarity’, Bakunin insists, represents the ‘whole power’ and the ‘only strength’ of the masses (Bakunin, 2002: p. 173; Bakunin, 1992: p. 152), and in Bakunin’s view it is the only social force which has the potential to bring about the transformation of society.

When deploying notions of class solidarity, Bakunin speaks of the same social phenomenon as does David Lockwood in his classic study of working-class identity, whereby he designates it as a defining characteristic of proletarian workers: ‘Shaped by occupational solidarities and communal sociability the proletarian social consciousness is centred on an awareness of “us” in contradistinction to “them” who are not a part of “us”’ (Lockwood, 1975: p. 18). This form of solidarity is, of course, necessarily oppositional and exclusive, in that it belongs to a specific social group whose members (and non-members) are relatively clearly delineated. As such, it is, according to Segall’s typology, a form of ‘group-solidarity’, which is characterised by ‘cohesion’, ‘fraternity’, and ‘collective responsibility’. Cohesion, for Segall, refers to the ‘willingness of group members to co-operate with other members in an effort to advance the common good of the group’ and, further, ‘the more cohesion a group enjoys the greater its capability to resist external pressure’ (Segall, 2003: p. 15). The second component of group-solidarity, fraternity, signals an unwillingness on the part of group members ‘to accept, or hold on to, a personal advantage or benefit if doing

50 so would undermine the collective effort’ (ibid.). The third component, collective responsibility, is defined by Segall as a ‘willingness to share responsibility for (some minimum level of) individual members’ well-being’ (ibid.).

In the following sections I explore in some detail the morphology of Bakunin’s concept of class solidarity. In doing so, I demonstrate that Bakunin’s notion of class solidarity adheres broadly to Segall’s group-solidarity model, which provides us with an instructive perspective as to the internal morphology of Bakunin’s concept. This is not to say that Segall’s notion of group-solidarity is merely projected onto Bakunin’s writings. Rather, it is to suggest that the process of mapping Bakunin’s concept of class solidarity is facilitated somewhat by reference to Segall’s type, or that Bakunin’s is a concept of group-solidarity the like of which is subsequently formally classified by Segall. Whilst the conception of class solidarity is very much Bakunin’s own, my analysis of its inner morphology captures a concept which can usefully be understood as a form of group-solidarity comprising notions of cohesion, fraternity and collective responsibility. Indeed, it is by way of solidarity’s proximity to the adjacent concept of class struggle that these components take on greater importance in terms of the decontestation of the former. Accordingly, the discussion of Bakunin’s notion of class solidarity is structured with reference to cohesion, fraternity and collective responsibility.

Cohesion Cohesion, as we have seen, (i) signals a willingness of group members to cooperate in pursuit of a common goal; and, (ii) allows for a greater resistance by the group to external pressures. In the case of Bakunin, the first aspect – cooperation – is identifiable in his insistence upon effective working-class organisation in trade unions. Bakunin put his faith in the International Working Men’s Association as the best way of organising this cooperation and thus of mobilising working-class solidarity. Indeed, he argued that cooperation between proletarians of all nations and occupations should constitute a core principle of the International’s political programme:

There is only one law binding all the members, individuals, sections and federations of the International, a law which constitutes its one true basis ... it is the international

solidarity of workers in all jobs and all countries in their economic struggle against the exploiters of labour (Bakunin, 1973: pp. 236-237)

Bakunin’s political vision is for the manifestation of class solidarity through a cooperative and international federation of workers’ organisations. The element of cooperation is crucial, since it allows for the effective organisation of ‘solidarity through the spontaneous action of the working classes’ and promotes the ‘absolutely free federation … of the working masses of all tongues and nations’ as opposed to their ‘unification by decree and under the aegis of any government’ (ibid.: p. 237). In other words, the aspect of cohesion entailed by class solidarity allows for that social group (the working class) to mobilise effectively in pursuit of their collective interests.

Further, it is clear that the element of cohesion within Bakunin’s notion of class solidarity in theory renders the working class more resistant to external pressures. The more cohesive a group is, the more able it is to withstand coercion from without and fragmentation from within. This refers to the exclusive and oppositional character of Bakunin’s conception of class solidarity. In the context of a politics of class struggle, of course, this means that the more cohesion enjoyed by the proletariat, the more likely it will be able to resist structural economic exploitation and inevitable bourgeois hostility towards its own political agenda through collective action. Bakunin communicates the political importance of group cohesion at various points in his writings, and not least in those which lay out his proposed programmes for action for the International and other working class and revolutionary organisations. In a series of articles for L’Egalité on ‘The Policy of the International’ (1869), Bakunin outlines quite clearly both the central principles of the First International (which had been founded in London in 1864) and the nature of the bourgeoisie and its relationship to the working class. ‘[F]aced with the formidable coalition of all the privileged classes, all the capitalists, and all the states’, he writes, it is simply impossible for ‘an isolated workers’ association, local or national’ to mount a successful and genuinely revolutionary class struggle (Bakunin, 2002: p. 162). Bakunin insists that ‘victory can only be achieved by a union of all the national and international associations into a single universal association which is none other than the great International Workingmen’s Association’ (ibid.). For class solidarity to constitute an effective bulwark against bourgeois exploitation, the aspect of cohesion contained within it must apply to the entire international proletariat and not be

52 confined to smaller regional or national groups or be subordinated to parochial solidarities based on narrower cultural, religious or even occupational identities, for instance. As such, Bakunin praises the founders of the International for ‘eliminating all religious and national questions from its programme’, since the differences between workers of different countries are ‘still too great for them to unite on the basis of one political and antireligious programme’ (ibid.: pp. 162, 163). Their aim, he states, is ‘to unite the oppressed and the exploited workers of the civilised world in one common effort’ (ibid.: p. 162) – an effort which would be undermined by a lack of cohesion so easily brought about by the forces of nationalism and religious or cultural sectarianism. This was a point on which he had been adamant before he joined the International in 1868. In his ‘Revolutionary Catechism’ (1866), he argued that ‘there should no longer be isolated revolutions, but a universal, worldwide revolution’, and that national rivalries and hostilities ‘must now be transformed into the unified, common, and universal interest of the revolution, which alone can assure the freedom and independence of each nation by the solidarity of all’ (ibid.: p.. 95- 96).

Bakunin thus recognised that the more cohesion enjoyed by the international workers’ movement, the stronger and more effective it would prove in organising for workers’ rights in the short term and agitating for social revolution in the long term. However, Bakunin recognises that the aspect of cohesion alone is insufficient to his concept of working class solidarity. As we have seen, the willingness to cooperate that is embodied by the notion of cohesion naturally implies an obligation on the part of individual members not to undermine the collective effort for the sake of their own personal gain. And, indeed, whilst Bakunin accepts that nationalism and various other cultural factors could undermine the group-solidarity of the international proletariat, he is also at pains to warn against the dangers of tendencies towards individualism.

Fraternity Fraternity and solidarity are often treated as onomasiologically interchangeable, as two terms which signify the same concept. Here, however, in order to analyse the internal morphology of Bakunin’s concept of solidarity, I will follow Segall’s assertion

53 that fraternity in fact constitutes a sub-conceptual component of the concept of group-solidarity (Segall, 2003: p. 22).

Bakunin’s anti-individualism can be instructively framed as a notion of fraternity if we understand the latter as a reluctance (or even, one might suggest, a refusal) to accept any personal advantages which come at the expense of or may cause damage to the collective effort of the group. If we look again to Bakunin’s writings on ‘The Policy of the International’, then the component of fraternity can quite clearly be identified within his concept of solidarity. When outlining the criteria for enrolment in the International, Bakunin insists that prospective members must pledge ‘to subordinate [their] personal and family interests as well as [their] political and religious beliefs to the supreme interests of our association’ and ‘never to compromise with the bourgeoisie for [their] own personal gain’ (Bakunin, 2002: p. 162). This requirement clearly constitutes an explicit commitment to refrain from undermining the collective effort through the pursuit of individual interests; as such, it amounts to a demand for fraternity. Bakunin goes on to reiterate this demand, insisting that members must never ‘satisfy [their] vanity by displaying [their] disdain for the rank and file’, for to do so would be characteristic of ‘the bourgeois’ who ‘shuns the collectivity’, whilst, conversely, ‘the proletarian seeks only the solidarity of all who work and are exploited by capitalism’ (ibid.). Further, he argues, members must always ‘remain faithful to the solidarity of labour’, and that ‘The least betrayal of this solidarity will be considered by the International as the greatest crime that any worker could commit’ (ibid.). In this sense, fraternity constitutes a key component of Bakunin’s concept of solidarity, and whilst he hopes for its realisation by the international proletariat, he simultaneously laments its absence in bourgeois culture. In his ‘Three Lectures to Swiss Members of the International’ (1871), Bakunin argues for the collective ‘enjoyment’ of wealth on the basis of its collective production, a notion he insists is precisely ‘what bourgeois economy does not want, what it hatefully resists. It wants individuals to enjoy [the fruits of collective labour] separately’7 (Bakunin, 1992: p. 58). For Bakunin, a system whereby wealth in society (conceived as the product of collective labour) is seen as a prize for which individuals compete against one another is precisely the opposite of that which is

7 Separately, but not equally, of course: ‘It grants [the enjoyment of wealth] to the powerful, the intelligent, the cunning, and the wealthy … the wealthy above all’ (Bakunin, 1992: pp. 58-59). 54 obtained by fraternity, which insists upon the negation of individual gain should it come at the expense of other members. As such, he condemns such individualism in no uncertain terms as ‘that tendency which considers all members of society, the mass of individuals, to be mutually unconcerned rivals and competitors’ and ‘which impels the individual to gain and erect his own well-being, prosperity and good fortune to the disadvantage of everyone else’ (ibid.: p. 57). Bakunin recognises the social damage that is inevitably wrought by such an ideology and, moreover, he does so in terms which pertain to the morphological importance of the notion of fraternity within the concept of solidarity, characterising bourgeois society as a ‘fratricidal struggle’ that constitutes ‘a continuous crime against human solidarity’ (ibid.). To deliberately pursue one’s own enrichment and personal gain at the expense of others is the very antithesis of fraternity and, as such, it contributes to the erosion of group-solidarity more generally.

Within the context of the politics of class struggle, the absence of fraternity is thus inevitably detrimental to the collective effort, which is why Bakunin places such emphasis on it in his writings on the International. Indeed, he conceives of fraternity as a guarantor of class solidarity, as an essential element of its realisation. In his address to Swiss members of the International, he praises his audience for their nobility and generosity: by joining ‘this vast association of labour which will liberate the workers of the entire world’, Bakunin says, members ‘prove thereby that [they] are thinking not just of [themselves] but of the millions of [their] brothers who are much more oppressed and less prosperous’ (ibid.: p. 61). Indeed, it is clear that Bakunin sees this subjugation of personal gain to the collective effort as an intrinsically fraternal act which in turn contributes to the solidarity of the group (the working class). He goes on to describe membership of the International as an ‘act of unselfish and fraternal solidarity’ (ibid.).

Collective responsibility After cohesion and fraternity, the third component of group-solidarity is collective responsibility. Collective responsibility, as Segall understands it, involves a willingness to bear responsibility for the well-being of other group members. He rightly identifies two contrasting ways in which the notion of responsibility might be decontested in relation to group-solidarity: (i) forward-looking responsibility-as-task

(i.e. responsibility for ensuring that a certain state of affairs obtains, such as that of a parent for ensuring that their children are cared for); (ii) backward-looking responsibility-as-liability (i.e. responsibility for the consequences of the actions of another, such as that borne by a parent (financially) in the event that their child breaks an item for sale in a shop (Segall, 2003: pp. 16-17). Segall contends that, although the first type, responsibility-as-task, is ‘no doubt pertinent to solidarity’, it is the second type, responsibility-as-liability, that is essential to the concept of group- solidarity, since a group’s solidaristic willingness ‘to share a mutual fate with fellow members’ implies that ‘they are also willing to be held collectively liable for certain undesired eventualities that may befall individual members’ (ibid.: p. 17). However, although it is clear that either or both of these decontestations of collective responsibility may constitute important components of a concept of group-solidarity, it is evident that in Bakunin’s writings, the former, forward-looking responsibility-as- task, is heavily preferred. As such, I shall focus here solely on the way in which forward-looking responsibility-as-task contributes to the internal morphology of Bakunin’s concept of class solidarity.

Referring again to Bakunin’s writings on the International, it is clear that the notion of collective responsibility is central to his thinking in relation to the way in which class solidarity should manifest itself within the organisation and amongst the proletariat more generally. Further, this notion refers both to the group-solidarity of the masses within the political context of class struggle and to a post-revolutionary strategy whereby class solidarity remains crucial for the consolidation of revolutionary principles and practices. In his 1868 pamphlet on ‘The Organisation of the International’, Bakunin locates the potential for social transformation at the intersection between, on the one hand, workers’ material oppression, and on the other, the development of ‘the new social philosophy’ based on the principles of ‘equality, liberty and worldwide solidarity’ (Bakunin, 1992: p. 137). Bakunin argues that, due to their poverty as individuals, workers have naturally ‘always sought wellbeing in solidarity’ (ibid.: p. 138 – emphasis added) and that the provision of welfare for all is a collective concern. Indeed, in his ‘Programme of the International Brotherhood’8 (1869), Bakunin insisted that the ‘welfare of each’ could only be

8 The ‘International Brotherhood’ or ‘Secret Alliance’ was, according to Sam Dolgoff, formally dissolved early in 1869. Although Bakunin denied its existence, and despite the lack of any real formal 56 realised ‘through the solidarity of all’ (Bakunin, 2002: p. 149), indicating a clear preference for a form of group-solidarity that prioritises collective responsibility for the wellbeing of individual members. In his pamphlet ‘Geneva’s Double Strike’ (1869),9 whilst arguing for the expansion of the International, Bakunin also reminds members of the importance of solidarity in relation to the practical measures implied by collective responsibility. ‘Let us build our solidarity in study, in labour, in public action, and in life’, he urges, ‘Let us become partners in common ventures to make our life together more bearable and less difficult’ (Bakunin, 1992: p. 148). Bakunin thus clearly recognised the central importance of collective responsibility to the realisation of group-solidarity and by urging for its practice in all areas of activity, his purpose was to ensure some degree of material improvement to workers’ everyday lives. Indeed, this emphasis on collective responsibility for the welfare of group members permeates Bakunin’s writings on the practical questions of social organisation. In his ‘Revolutionary Catechism’ (1866),10 whilst outlining the fundamental principles and programme of action for libertarian-socialist revolution, he draws up a series of ‘Individual rights’, the safeguarding of which is a matter for collective responsibility. They include: ‘The right of every man and woman, from birth to adulthood, to complete upkeep, clothes, food, shelter, care, guidance, education … all at the expense of society’ and ‘The equal right of adolescents, while freely choosing their careers, to be helped and to the greatest possible extent supported by society’ (Bakunin, 2002: p. 79). Similarly, in his ‘Programme of the International Brotherhood’, Bakunin insists upon the collective responsibility of ‘the commune’ for the provision of ‘the strict necessities of life to all the individuals so dispossessed [by the expropriation of private property]’ (ibid.: p. 153). In Bakunin’s scheme the welfare and development of individual members of the group (constituted by the working class in the context of class struggle and by the commune in a post-revolutionary society) are matters for which the collective as a whole is responsible. Bakunin thus

organisation, there was, says Dolgoff, ‘undoubtedly an informal group of “advanced men” adhering to Bakunin’s ideas’ (in Bakunin, 2002: p. 148). 9 The two strikes to which Bakunin refers were staged by stonecutters and bricklayers in March 1869, over the failure of employers to honour a previously agreed pay-scale, and were supported by workers across the building trades. The strikes’ significance, argues Robert Cutler, ‘lies in the fact of solidarity, previously undemonstrated among the different trades, and in the support they received from the IWMA’ (in Bakunin, 1992: p. 212). 10 Along with the ‘National Catechism’, Bakunin’s ‘Revolutionary Catechism’ is considered by many to constitute, as his biographer H. E. Kaminski put it, ‘the spiritual foundation of the entire anarchist movement’ (Kaminski, 1938: pp. 213-214). 57 deploys a notion of forward-looking responsibility-as-task. It is the collective responsibility of the group to ensure that the wellbeing of all members is catered for. Although the scope of ‘wellbeing’ is not fully elaborated by Bakunin, he does suggest that it refers to more than the satisfaction of basic necessities; it concerns a full and rounded education and the provision of an environment conducive to individual flourishing. Of course, such a notion of collective responsibility is ‘forward-looking’, since it is a form of responsibility that refers to the process (or task) of ensuring that a particular set of circumstances obtains.

Class solidarity as group-solidarity: conceptual morphology I have examined here in some detail Bakunin’s second use of solidarity (class solidarity). This analysis has shed light on a number of details concerning the way in which this concept operates within Bakunin’s ideological morphology and has also sought to capture the internal morphological structure of the concept itself. In the same way that natural solidarity is morphologically dependent upon the adjacent concept of natural law, class solidarity is reliant upon the proximity of the concept of class struggle. By its proximity to solidarity, class struggle affects the configuration of solidarity’s sub-conceptual components in a certain way which allows it to be deployed as class solidarity. Namely, it allows for an emphasis to be placed on the three components of cohesion, fraternity and collective responsibility, all of which facilitate the manifestation of Bakunin’s ideology into an (albeit tentative and imprecise) practical policy programme. As explained in the analysis, the notion of cohesion – the willingness of group members to cooperate in pursuit of a common goal – is crucial since it signals the strength-in-unity that allows for the effective organisation of and political agitation by working-class organisations such as the IWMA and, indeed, by the proletariat generally. The notion of fraternity – the unwillingness of members to accept personal advantages at the expense of the collective – serves to reinforce the collective effort of the masses in their struggle against the bourgeoisie. The notion of collective responsibility allows for group- solidarity to be translated into a set of practical measures that specify the wellbeing of individual group members as a matter of communal concern.

All three of these components are fundamental to the idea of group-solidarity; all three must be exercised by a group if it is to be considered ‘substantially solidaristic’,

58 as Segall puts it (Segall, 2003: p. 15). Whilst each characteristic can exist separately to the others, none is sufficient in itself to constitute group-solidarity. When a sense of group-solidarity is present the morphological interlinkage of the three components is self-evident. Solidarity inevitably implies some form of non-instrumental concern for the wellbeing of others; this concern gives rise to cohesion, or the willingness to cooperate with other group members in order to advance the common good. This willingness in turn signals a commitment to refrain from the pursuit of individual interests at the expense of the collective effort – fraternity. The mutual concern for the wellbeing of fellow members also produces a feeling of collective responsibility for the provision and maintenance of that wellbeing (ibid.). The above discussion captures the manner in which this interlinkage works in Bakunin’s ideology and the prominence of all three components – cohesion, fraternity and collective responsibility – indicates a clear preference for a group-solidarity of the working class. Whilst this form of solidarity is necessarily oppositional and exclusive within a context of class struggle politics, it retains importance in a post-revolutionary scenario in which the consolidation of libertarian-socialist principles is prioritised.

Thus far we have examined the two uses of solidarity evident in Bakunin’s writings. We have seen how each of these uses is dependent upon solidarity’s interlinkage with a different adjacent concept: the first – natural solidarity – with natural law; the second – class solidarity – with class struggle. By virtue to solidarity’s proximity to either of these two adjacent concepts at any one time, the components that make up the concept take on a particular configuration. When deployed in conjunction with natural law, solidarity is decontested as mutual recognition and is identifiable as natural solidarity. When used with reference to the notion of class struggle, the components of cohesion, fraternity and collective responsibility attain prominence, and the concept is recognisable as class solidarity. Whilst the analysis has hitherto been concentrated on a very small area of Bakunin’s ideological morphology – on the internal morphology of his concept of solidarity – in the following section we shall consider the place that the concept occupies within that morphology on a wider scale. The intention is to establish the way in which Bakunin’s concept of solidarity is interlinked with his other core concepts, and remark upon how their mutual proximity affects the decontestation of each and the articulation of his ideology generally.

Liberté, egalité, solidarité? According to socialist historian G. D. H. Cole, Bakunin’s social theory ‘began, and almost ended, with liberty’ (Cole, 1954: p. 219). It is clear that, for Bakunin, liberty represents a value to prize above all else; it is a core concept that forms the central focus of his ideology. In ‘The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State’ (1871), Bakunin famously declares himself a ‘fanatical lover of liberty’ (Bakunin, 2002: p. 261) and, indeed, the attainment, preservation and affirmation of a genuine concept of human freedom11 characterises virtually all of his theoretical writings. But freedom constitutes only one corner of a conceptual triangle which serves as the morphological foundation on which Bakunin’s ideology is constructed. Within his ideological morphology, freedom sits in close proximity to the core concepts of solidarity and equality so that the decontestation of each is influenced heavily by the presence of the others. Indeed, these three concepts display a high degree of morphological interdependence and Bakunin himself is insistent that none can be realised in the absence of any one of the others. In 1871 he wrote that:

Social solidarity is the first human law; freedom is the second law. Both laws interpenetrate and are inseparable from each other, thus constituting the very essence of humanity. Thus freedom is not the negation of solidarity; on the contrary it represents the development of, and so to speak, the humanisation of the latter (Bakunin, 1964: pp. 339-340)

Bakunin asserts that, far from contradicting one another (as in the classical liberal conception), solidarity and freedom actually constitute necessary conditions for one another’s realisation. In his sprawling, mostly unpublished text ‘The Knouto- Germanic Empire and the Social Revolution’ Bakunin insists that liberty is ‘an eminently social matter, which can only be realised by means of society and through the strictest equality and solidarity of each and everybody’ (Bakunin, 1973: p. 149). Bakunin himself is clearly well aware of the interdependence of these three concepts, and as a result their morphological interlinkage is plainly discernible in his writings. Further, the relationship between Bakunin’s core concepts has important implications for the peculiar ways in which each of them is decontested, so it is worth mapping out the pattern of the concepts’ interlinkage in some detail, paying particular

11 I use the terms ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom’ interchangeably throughout. 60 attention to the manner in which the decontestation of solidarity is affected, and the morphological impact of solidarity on the other concepts.

Two concepts of freedom Bakunin offers both a negative and a positive conception of freedom. For him, ‘freedom, from the positive point of view’, consists in ‘the development, as complete as possible, of all faculties which man has within himself’ (Bakunin, 1964: p. 271). By contrast, ‘from the negative point of view’, freedom is ‘the independence of the will of everyone from the will of others’ (ibid.). The latter refers to the non-interference with or non-coercion of individuals and therefore ‘consists in the rebellion of the human individual against all authority, whether divine or human, collective or individual’ (Bakunin, 1973: p. 149). The former, positive conception is expressed in ‘the full development and full enjoyment of all human faculties and powers in every man’ and is an ‘eminently social matter, which can only be realised through the strictest equality and solidarity of each and everybody’ (ibid.). It is clear that Bakunin deploys the concept of freedom in two quite discrete ways, and, as the above quotation demonstrates, he did so consciously and explicitly. Broadly speaking, Bakunin’s ‘two concepts of liberty’ accord to the eponymous typology advanced a century later by Isaiah Berlin (see Berlin, 1969). (Incidentally, Berlin does not acknowledge Bakunin’s contribution, despite having read him and written on him some years prior to developing his own formulation.) Bakunin’s negative concept of liberty naturally emphasises a freedom from external coercion or interference by a social body, rather than any positive notions concerning a substantive freedom to attain certain goals, realise certain potentialities or exercise certain social functions. Let us first examine Bakunin’s negative conception of freedom, expressed as follows:

[Negative] Freedom is the absolute right of every man and woman to seek no other sanction for their acts than their own conscience and their own reason, being responsible first to themselves and then to the society which they have voluntarily accepted (Bakunin, 2002: p. 76)

Although formulated in a positive manner (in the sense that it involves a process of positive decision-making on the part of the individual), this conception clearly expresses a preference for negative freedom, for the non-interference with the will of the individual by external agents. However, as George Crowder recognises,

Bakunin’s concept of negative freedom does not equate to an unqualified or complete absence of ‘any human impediment whatsoever’ (Crowder, 1991: p. 129). Indeed, for Bakunin such an extreme or absolute decontestation of negative freedom would carry deeply troubling social consequences, for it would effectively amount to the complete isolation of the individual and thus, given Bakunin’s conception of the individual as a product of society, to an absence of freedom as such. For life outside of society, completely free of social influences, argues Bakunin, ‘is tantamount to intellectual, moral and material death’ (Bakunin, 1964: p. 169). It is precisely such a notion of freedom that supports contractarian justifications of government such as that proposed by Rousseau, whereby the absolute enjoyment of individual freedom in the state of nature becomes restricted when individuals enter into society in exchange for the protection of some fundamental rights by the state. Of course, Bakunin repeatedly and vociferously opposes social contract theory, and in dismissing that which he sees as the myth of the state of nature he simultaneously rejects the notion of absolute negative liberty (essentially a theoretical fallacy) that upholds it and consequently the principal philosophical grounds for a freedom- limiting state (Crowder, 1991: p. 129).

As such, when Bakunin declares himself ‘a fanatical lover of liberty’, he is eager to distance his conception from those whereby negative liberty consists in absolute non-coercion in a state of nature, or as limited non-coercion by a political state. Bakunin expressly rejects ‘that freedom which is purely formal, doled out, measured and regulated by the State’, and he dismisses the Rousseauian and ‘bourgeois liberal’ conceptions of negative freedom as ‘individualistic, egotistical, malicious and illusory’ on the grounds that they consider ‘the so-called rights of everyone, represented by the State as the limit of the rights of each individual’ (Bakunin, 1973: p. 196). For Bakunin, the state constitutes a form of artificial authority that is fundamentally incompatible with his own negative conception of liberty and it is on this basis that his original and enduring anarchist critique of the state is founded. The state, by its very nature, argues Bakunin, ‘is the most flagrant, the most cynical, and the most complete negation of humanity’, which ‘shatters the universal solidarity of all men on the earth’ (Bakunin, 2002: p. 133). The state, he asserts, constitutes not only a violation of individual liberty, but also undermines ‘the natural and inevitable solidarity … which binds all men together’ (Bakunin, 1970: p. 43n). For Bakunin, this

62 solidarity has not previously been fully manifest because social life has been based on ‘worship of divinity, not on respect for humanity; on authority, not on liberty; on privilege, not on equality; on the exploitation, not the brotherhood of men; on iniquity and falsehood, not on justice and truth’ (ibid.).

In order to understand Bakunin’s negative conception of freedom, we must return to his theory of natural law. Whilst negative freedom for Bakunin does indeed consist in the non-coercion of the individual by external social agents (which amounts to artificial or political authority), it does not negate the influence of natural and social laws. It is important to reiterate at this juncture the fundamental distinction between natural and social laws on the one hand and political laws on the other. The former exist ‘independently of all human will’, constitute ‘the very life of Nature and society’, and impel our ‘involuntary and inevitable obedience’ (Bakunin, 1964: p. 168). Conversely, the latter comprise ‘authoritarian, arbitrary, political, religious, and civil laws’ which are created by the dominant classes in order to ‘enable exploitation of the work of the masses’ and which have ‘the sole aim of curbing the liberty of the masses’ (ibid.). So according to Bakunin’s concept of negative liberty, freedom consists in the absence of those artificial, political laws, not in the complete lack of laws or social restrictions per se. Indeed, as Richard Saltman observes, Bakunin’s conception of freedom rests upon his theory of mutual influence and natural law as the only legitimate forms of authority (Saltman, 1983: pp. 31-39). For Bakunin, Saltman rightly attests, ‘nature’ consists of the summation of all of the processes of cause and effect, all of the relationships which occur in the physical and social worlds (ibid.: p. 34). Society, as ‘the basis and natural starting-point of man’s human existence’ (Bakunin, 1973: p. 145) is, like the rest of nature, governed by natural laws. The ‘natural influence of society’ represents a legitimate authority, argues Bakunin, since society is the natural mode of human existence. To rebel against society – conceived, of course as a separate entity from the state – thus represents an absurd impossibility, since, in order to do so, one ‘must at least partially rebel against himself, for … he himself is only a product of society’ (ibid.: p. 150). The process of ‘mutual interaction’, as Saltman puts it, thus represents one of the key natural laws on which human society is founded and is therefore also a crucial factor in the production of individuals and of their liberty (Saltman, 1983: p. 36). The necessity of mutual influence, of interdependence in the production and maintenance

63 of the individual, he argues, ‘led Bakunin to refer to the “natural and social law of human solidarity”’ and to argue ‘that such influence was “the very basis” of human solidarity’ (ibid.: p. 37).

Saltman’s observations point to significant patterns in Bakunin’s thought which should be considered important in relation to the present analysis. Earlier, we saw that Bakunin conceives of solidarity as a natural law – a characterisation supported by Saltman’s reading. In conceptualising solidarity as a natural law, Bakunin seeks to present it as an innate characteristic of human social behaviour. In contrast to those solidarities which are imposed by a central, arbitrary authority, or which come into conflict with the liberty of the individual, Bakunin is therefore able to claim – at least within a framework that acknowledges the separation of natural authority from its artificial counterpart (the state, church, etc.) – that his notion of solidarity represents a legitimate basis for a future anarchistic social order. As noted by Saltman, ‘Through the application … of Nature’s central principle to human society, Bakunin believed he had generated a firm natural-law foundation for his conception of solidarity. Human solidarity, in turn, became the cornerstone of Bakunin’s understanding of human freedom’ (ibid.). Through its basis in natural law, Bakunin’s concept of natural solidarity is partially decontested in such a way that its interlinkage with the concept of liberty becomes both morphologically viable and necessary. Viable, because of the conceptual robustness acquired by solidarity through its grounding in natural law; necessary, because of the inter-conceptual reliance that occurs between the concepts of liberty and solidarity. For without liberty, in Bakunin’s view, there can be no solidarity, since the natural diversity of humankind, which constitutes a key harmonising factor in society cannot be fully realised. This diversity, Bakunin argues, makes ‘humanity … a collective whole in which the one individual complements all the others and needs them’ (Bakunin, 1992: p. 117). ‘As a result’, he continues, ‘this infinite diversity of human individuals is the fundamental cause and the very basis of their solidarity’ (ibid.). In other words, in the absence of genuine personal and social freedom, individuals are unable to develop their unique potentialities which are fundamental to the cultivation of social interdependence and subsequently solidarity. Equally, without solidarity, there is no liberty, since the individual is only able to attain freedom, as Saltman puts it, ‘in and through the social collective’ (Saltman, 1983: p. 37). Indeed, as we saw earlier, freedom for Bakunin

64 necessarily occurs socially; it is attained only through the recognition of others: ‘Being free for man means being acknowledged, considered and treated as such by another man, and by all the men around him’ (Bakunin, 1973: p. 147). Freedom must occur universally: ‘I am only properly free’, argues Bakunin, ‘when all the men and women about me are equally free’; it is therefore realised only through ‘the strictest equality and solidarity of each and everybody’ (ibid.: pp. 148-149). Bakunin’s notion of individual liberty through social solidarity is thus logical, rather than contradictory in nature (Saltman, 1983: p. 38). It is clear that Bakunin himself explicitly stresses the importance of the structural relationship between solidarity and liberty. Indeed, in Bakunin’s political thought, the two concepts are inextricable from one another and, morphologically speaking, they represent a crucial part of his ideological core.

As we have seen, Bakunin emphasises the need to depart from the notion of coercive, top-down or state-sanctioned solidarity which by definition inhibits individual liberty. He stresses here that the natural condition is not – as in liberal conceptions – for the needs and interests of one individual to compete with and to impede those of others. Such divisions are artificial, a result of the perpetuation of material inequalities which are guaranteed under a capitalist economic system and in a society dominated by state power. In fact, argues Bakunin, it is more natural for the interests of individuals to correlate, to be characterised by solidarity. The aim of social revolution is therefore to ‘Make all needs really solidary, and cause the material and social interests of each to conform to the human duties of each’ (Bakunin, 1970: p. 43n). When the broad interests of each member of society are in accordance rather than in contradiction, the likelihood of social conflict is greatly reduced. As such, whilst social division is rooted in material inequality and exploitation, social solidarity is dependent upon a level of equality, which Bakunin sees as a precondition for freedom as well as solidarity.

Indeed, Bakunin insists that ‘equality is an absolutely necessary condition for freedom’, going on to specify three types of equality: political, social and economic (Bakunin, 1992: pp. 48-49). As with liberty, Bakunin forwards a dismissive critique of the conception of equality as embodied in the French-revolutionary formula: liberté, egalité, fraternité. This form of equality, argues Bakunin, refers to a solely political equality (equality before the law and equality of political rights) which has no basis in

65 economic and social equality and thus amounts to no genuine equality at all (ibid.). For although all citizens are officially equal, whilst the lowliest and poorest in society technically have the same political rights as the most wealthy and most learned, they do not have the necessary means to fully exercise those rights. Equality in its truest sense, argues Bakunin, is inevitably a social and economic concept, which involves ‘the equalisation of personal wealth’ and demands ‘a society so organised that every single human being will … find therein equal means, first for maintenance and education, and later, for the exercise of all his natural capacities and aptitudes’ (Bakunin, 2002: p. 88). It is only on the basis of a fundamental economic or material equality that equality in the social and political realms can become a reality. Further, as we have said, for Bakunin, equality constitutes an essential precondition of both liberty and solidarity. Whilst he insists that ‘freedom is only possible through equality’ (Bakunin, 1992: p. 48), he is equally adamant that ‘solidarity … has for its essential basis equality’ (Bakunin, 2002: p. 285). He reasserts this interdependence in his ‘Letter to the Comrades of the Jura Federation’, writing that without the ‘great and all- embracing principle of the people’s liberty … equality and solidarity would be falsehoods’ (ibid.: p. 353).

Solidarity, liberty and equality thus constitute a conceptual trio within the core of Bakunin’s ideology. Any one of those concepts would, by its removal, precipitate the collapse of Bakunin’s ideology, make it unrecognisable as the collectivist brand of anarchism with which his name has come to be associated. The three concepts are morphologically interlinked to the extent that the decontestation of each is shaped by the proximity of the other two. Accordingly, as we have seen, solidarity, liberty and equality display a high degree of morphological interdependence. As normative values, they are only realisable and able to flourish in the presence of one another, a notion of which Bakunin was patently aware himself. Specifically, the position of solidarity within his ideology is crucial. As we have seen, in Bakunin’s scheme, natural solidarity can only be manifest in conditions of perfect liberty and equality whereby individuals are able to develop their own peculiar potentialities and thus contribute to a natural interdependence through diversity. Equally, genuine liberty is unattainable without the social framework provided by natural solidarity, since we cannot be free in isolation. Neither can we be free in the absence of equality, since freedom is necessarily a freedom of equals. According to the principle of mutual

66 recognition, if one person is ‘freer’ than another, then neither can in fact be truly free. Equality enjoys a similar interrelationship with solidarity. Whilst equality cannot be preserved if we forgo solidarity in favour of individualism, solidarity itself is impossible but for the equalisation of individuals’ interests that is produced by an egalitarian distribution – or, more properly, a collective ownership – of resources, rights and opportunities.

Conclusion I have presented in this chapter a detailed analysis of Bakunin’s core concept of solidarity. In doing so, I have characterised it as comprising four components in addition to the ineliminable core of the individual-collective bond: mutual recognition; cohesion; fraternity and collective responsibility. The morphology of Bakunin’s concept of solidarity is displayed in Figure 1:

Figure 1: Bakunin's concept of solidarity

Collective Mutual responsibility recognition

Individual- collective bond

Fraternity Cohesion

I have said that Bakunin uses solidarity in two distinct ways. The first usage, which I call ‘natural solidarity’, refers to a social relation produced by human beings’ fundamental need for recognition by others within their community. Heavily influenced by Hegel’s master-slave dialectic, Bakunin conceives of natural solidarity as the inevitable product of our innate need to be acknowledged as human beings and to acknowledge others as such. This need gives rise to a social interdependence which in turn provides the basis for an ethical community of self-

conscious, free and equal individuals. Bakunin characterises solidarity in this sense as one of many natural laws which dictate all that persists in the natural and social worlds. When used in this way, solidarity is dependent upon the adjacent concept of natural law, and its sub-conceptual component of mutual recognition becomes prominent. Natural solidarity is universal in scope and thus non-oppositional, since all individuals are subject to the need for recognition. As such, it applies to society generally, to a global or human community, rather than to smaller social groups. Figure 2 displays Bakunin’s usage of solidarity as natural solidarity:

Figure 2: Bakunin's usage of solidarity as natural solidarity

Solidarity

Collective Mutual responsibility recognition

Individual- collective Natural law bond

Fraternity Cohesion

I labelled Bakunin’s second use of solidarity ‘class solidarity’. Class solidarity is that which is exercised by the proletariat (or, rather, by the masses generally) in its historic struggle against the bourgeoisie. In contrast to natural solidarity, which is universal and non-oppositional, class solidarity is a form of group-solidarity that is both exclusive and oppositional. The morphological configuration of solidarity when used in this way is dependent upon the adjacent concept of class struggle, which emphasises three key sub-conceptual components within solidarity: cohesion, fraternity and collective responsibility. The former, cohesion, refers to group members’ willingness to cooperate in pursuit of a common goal and contributes to the group’s increased capacity for resistance of external pressures. In Bakunin’s

scheme, this component is manifest in the organisation and mobilisation of international working-class solidarity and a preference for cooperation between workers’ organisations in all nations. For Bakunin, this cooperation is fundamental to the execution of an effective class struggle strategy. Bakunin also stresses the importance of fraternity, which consists in a refusal by group members to accept or retain advantages at the expense of the wider group. He insists in various writings, particularly in those on the policy of the International Working Men’s Association, upon the need for members to subordinate personal self-interest to the collective effort. The notion of collective responsibility for group members’ well-being is also key to the decontestation of class solidarity. Indeed, Bakunin consistently emphasises the point that individuals’ well-being and education should be provided for by the collective. Bakunin’s second usage of solidarity – as class solidarity – is displayed in Figure 3:

Figure 3: Bakunin’s usage of solidarity as class solidarity

Solidarity

Collective Mutual responsibility recognition

Individual- collective Class struggle bond

Fraternity Cohesion

The analysis also located Bakunin’s concept of solidarity in relation to his other core concepts of liberty and equality. These three concepts display a high level of interdependence, to the extent that none is able to flourish in the absence of the other two. Solidarity is dependent upon liberty, for without the latter individuals are unable to realise the unique potentialities which contribute to diversity and thus social interdependence. At the same time, solidarity is a necessary condition for individual liberty, since for Bakunin the individual can only achieve freedom through

69 the recognition of his fellow human beings. Recognition necessarily occurs between equal individuals, for no one individual can enjoy more freedom than another without negating freedom as such. Both solidarity and liberty are thus also interconnected with and dependent upon the concept of equality. Indeed, the interdependence of these three core concepts is such that any one of them – not least solidarity – by its removal causes the collapse of Bakunin’s ideology. To paraphrase Bakunin himself: liberty without solidarity is privilege and injustice; solidarity without liberty is slavery and despotism.

4. Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity

‘The social animals … are guided almost exclusively … by special instincts in the aid which they give to the members of the same community’

Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man (Darwin, 2004: p. 132)

‘If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin’

Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the ‘Beagle’ (Darwin, 1969: p. 500)

This chapter examines the concept of solidarity in the work of Peter Kropotkin. Kropotkin is seen, almost without exception, as ‘the foremost anarchist theoretician of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’ (McKay, 2014: p. 1). His contribution, argues Peter Marshall, served to give anarchism ‘a philosophical respectability at a time when it was increasingly being associated in the popular press with mindless terrorism’ (Marshall, 1993: p. 308). However, that is not to downplay Kropotkin’s involvement in revolutionary activism. As Ruth Kinna has observed, his occasional representation as an ‘arm-chair revolutionary’ and as a ‘thinker rather than doer’ is misleading: Kropotkin was heavily involved in the international anarchist movement throughout his life, and, despite being in his seventies at the time, returned from exile to his native Russia in support of the 1917 revolution (Kinna, 2014: p. 19). Nevertheless, he is best remembered for his written contributions, particularly Mutual Aid (1902), a work of popular science which demonstrated that cooperation was as important a factor of evolution as individual competition.

The main goals of the chapter are to identify the idea-components which make up the micro-structure of Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity and to investigate the way in which these and the conceptual combinations which help to shape them contribute to a distinctive decontestation of the concept. Accordingly, it identifies several

71 components which serve to substantialise solidarity from its ineliminable core. These refer to the subject of the ineliminable component, to an evaluation of its desirability and to notions of community, shared identity, common interest and the social production of individuality. Some of these categories are logical corollaries of solidarity’s ineliminable component. Evaluations of solidarity’s desirability, or the concept’s subject, for instance, are inevitably brought into play by any attempt at elaborating on the individual-collective bond. However, whilst these categories must in some way be addressed by any concept of solidarity, logic does not determine the peculiar ways in which those areas of meaning are filled. It is not possible to logically deduce the subject of solidarity, for instance; we know only that a coherent concept must clearly specify a subject. This meaning is culturally determined, and culture pertains partly to a concept’s ideational environment, which is shaped by temporal and spatial factors to do with influential discourses and human agency (individual preference). Additional components, which do not fill logically necessary categories, but are equally important in the concept’s decontestation, are incorporated by this same process.

The logically necessary categories are satisfied in the following ways. First, we see that Kropotkin operates according to a universally inclusive conception of the collective: the subject of his concept of solidarity is not limited to a specific group within society but is applicable to a global or human community. Second, we seek to explain the reasons why Kropotkin places such value on the concept of solidarity, concluding that they lie in the part played by cooperation in the development of species generally and particularly in the evolution of human moral conceptions. Third, the analysis turns its attention to additional features of Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity, arguing that the decontestation of the collective as universal is enabled by his notion of community. The aspect of community also serves to support the development of solidarity by bolstering the idea of a common interest and facilitating close social interaction. Fourth, the analysis explores the way in which Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity incorporates the notion of the social production of individuality. Kropotkin concludes that the development of the collective is an essential precondition of that of the individual.

The analysis proper is preceded by an investigation into the linguistic and conceptual relationship between the terms ‘solidarity’ and ‘mutual aid’ in order to establish the extent to which the two are interchangeable. Although the terms are not synonymous, Kropotkin’s notion of mutual aid constitutes an empirical manifestation of the abstract concept of solidarity. Consequently, the nature of the relationship between the two terms is such that for analytical purposes we can treat Kropotkin’s references to mutual aid as indicative of – but not equatable to – his concept of solidarity.

Mutual Aid, Ethics and solidarity Although this analysis draws on various texts from across Kropotkin’s oeuvre, the two major texts drawn on most heavily in this chapter are Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902) and Ethics: Origin and Development (1921). They have been selected because together they give the fullest exposition of Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity. Whilst the essence of Kropotkin’s thought is perhaps most coherently represented by Mutual Aid and Ethics along with The Conquest of Bread (Harrison, 1993: p. viii), the latter of those texts is of a more prescriptive leaning and does not engage with the concept of solidarity at the same level of theoretical depth as some of his other works. Kropotin’s Ethics, however, is, in a sense, a continuation of his work on Mutual Aid. As noted in the translators’ note on the Ethics, ‘The basic ideas of the two books are closely connected, almost inseparable, in fact: the origin and progress of human relations in society’ (Friedland and Piroshnikoff, 1993: p. iii). These ‘basic ideas’ about the development of human society, I argue, can be linked by their fundamental reliance on the core concept of solidarity.

Kropotkin’s central purpose in Mutual Aid is to prove, contrary to the social Darwinist thesis, that the factor of mutual aid is more important in the evolution of species than that of competition between individuals (Kropotkin, 2006: p. xviii). The linguistic link between the terms ‘mutual aid’ and solidarity is quite clear. But whilst both conjure impressions of cooperation, reciprocity and unity, this does not necessarily attest to their synonymy. Nevertheless, there is clearly some relationship between the two, whether it be directly onomasiological, or simply brought about through some shared area of meaning incorporated within each concept. In order to establish the nature of the relationship between mutual aid and solidarity we must examine their usage by

Kropotkin and attempt to unravel their specific applications. For although Kropotkin titled his book Mutual Aid, the text is scattered with references to solidarity. For example, in his preface to the 1914 edition, drawing on the recent and ongoing events of the First World War, Kropotkin asserts that, in spite of the impending wreckage, ‘we may still be sure that the teachings and traditions of human solidarity will, after all, emerge intact’ (Kropotkin, 2006: p. vii). This confidence is founded, he says, on the fact that, amidst the state-sanctioned slaughter, ‘we see thousands of manifestations of spontaneous mutual aid’: the offerings of food by local peasants to captured soldiers; the emergence of cooperative kitchens across France; the provision of aid to Belgium by the British and Americans and to Poland by the Russians; and, perhaps most tellingly, the tending of the wounded by thousands of men and women of all nations ‘without making distinction between friend and foe, officer or soldier’ (ibid.: pp. vii-ix). Indeed, Kropotkin’s final example puts one in mind of the British nurse Edith Cavell, who, as matron of a Red Cross hospital near Brussels, was known to nurse all soldiers regardless of military allegiance (Schafer, 2005: p. 280). On the eve of her execution by firing squad for aiding the escape of Allied soldiers from German-occupied Belgium, Cavell famously pronounced that ‘patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone’ (in Knowles, 1999: p. 198).12

The linguistic contexts in which Kropotkin uses the terms ‘mutual aid’ and ‘solidarity’ suggest that he sees them if not as synonymous then certainly as similar or closely related. Whilst solidarity is embodied in ‘teachings and traditions’, mutual aid appears as ‘spontaneous manifestations’. This would seemingly place solidarity at a higher level of abstraction than mutual aid, which, in its being expressed through human actions is more empirically verifiable. Further, it might suggest that actions of mutual aid are manifest expressions of a broader feeling of solidarity, or that solidarity is in some way more fundamental. This interpretation is supported by David Morland, whose reading of Kropotkin stipulates that ‘the construction of social relations’ facilitated by social solidarity (though Morland prefers the term ‘sociability’) ‘by their very nature supply the bedrock of that which is known as mutual aid’ (Morland, 1997: p. 134). It is the human tendency for social solidarity that produces a

12 It is worth noting, incidentally, that the Allied governments made effective use of Cavell’s death for propaganda purposes. Against her explicit wishes, she was made a martyr and the weeks following her execution saw a significant spike in military recruitment (Schafer, 2005: p. 80). 74 set of social relations that constitutes the supportive network within which mutual aid can occur. For without solidarity society cannot properly function, and without a functioning society mutual aid is deprived of its channel of expression.

In his introduction to Mutual Aid, Kropotkin reviews the researches of a number of his contemporaries, some of whom had made tentative steps towards the suggestion that mutual aid has a role in species’ development. In doing so, he makes one particularly interesting criticism, which focuses on the tendency ‘to reduce animal sociability to love and sympathy’ (ibid.: p. xv). To view animal sociability in this way, says Kropotkin, is to underplay its ‘generality and its importance, just as human ethics based upon love and personal sympathy only have contributed to narrow the comprehension of the moral feeling as a whole’ (ibid.: p. xv). Indeed, it is not love which on finding a fellow human being – to whom one may be a complete stranger – in a situation of acute distress or danger impels one to rush to their aid. Rather, says Kropotkin, ‘it is a far wider, even though more vague feeling or instinct of human solidarity and sociability’ which moves one (ibid.: p. xv). For Kropotkin, then, solidarity amounts to much more than merely a feeling of love, or even sympathy. Whilst one feels love for those to whom one is close, for one’s friends and family, this same feeling cannot apply in situations of the type that Kropotkin cites. Rather, it is a deep-seated instinct that has been gradually developed in both animals and men through a long process of evolution (ibid.: p. xvi). The distinction is important, says Kropotkin, because although ‘love, sympathy and self-sacrifice’ have contributed to the development of our moral feelings, they do not constitute the bases of human society. Again, then, Kropotkin elevates his concept of solidarity to a level of generality which apparently distinguishes it from mutual aid, which by contrast is constituted in particular instances of human action. In the hypothetical scenario cited above, it is the feeling of solidarity which impels us to perform acts of mutual aid. This same thread runs throughout Kropotkin’s work. Indeed, in the introduction to the 1922 edition of Kropotkin’s Ethics, it is emphasised by the Russian editor Lebedev that for Kropotkin, ‘in the world of moral relations solidarity is expressed in sympathy, in mutual aid, and in co-miseration’ (Lebedev, 1993: p. xv – sic.). This supports our initial hypothesis concerning the relationship between solidarity and mutual aid. Mutual aid and solidarity are not, then, onomasiologically related; they are not simply two different terms for the same concept. However, in framing their relationship to

75 one another in a certain way, in viewing acts of mutual aid as empirical manifestations of an abstract concept of solidarity, we gain a more sophisticated and instructive understanding of both.

In his Ethics, Kropotkin sought to demonstrate that moral philosophy must be firmly rooted in the natural sciences. He termed his ethics ‘naturalistic’ (Harrison, 1993: p. ix), in that they rejected both metaphysics and the supernatural and assumed that the basis of human morality could be found by means of an inductive method informed by evolutionary theory. Ultimately, Kropotkin’s conclusion is that solidarity represents the basis of human moral conceptions. Indeed, it is argued by Lebedev that Kropotkin’s Ethics can be characterised as a teaching of ‘brotherhood’, but notes that Kropotkin himself ‘preferred the term solidarity’ (Lebedev, 1993: p. xiv). Volume I therefore consists in a history of moral philosophy in which Kropotkin evaluates the points at which progress has been made by various thinkers towards this end. However, Kropotkin’s Ethics were left unfinished at the time of his death, the great anarchist succumbing to pneumonia in 1921. His intention had been to follow up the first volume – itself incomplete – with his own theoretical statement on the origin and character of human beings’ moral principles and conceptions. Although this statement was never written, there is provision enough in Kropotkin’s critical survey in Volume I for a reconstruction of his own views on moral philosophy. As Andrew Harrison notes in his introduction to one edition of the Ethics, in laying out the history of intellectual development that had gone before, Kropotkin certainly presents a very clear impression of his own thoughts on the matter (Harrison, 1993: p. v; p. ix).

The crux of Kropotkin’s argument is that the moral feeling in human beings is derived from the feeling of sociality and the practice of mutual aid, rather than from any divine creator or other external source. The feeling of mutual sympathy engendered by social life, and our tendency to identify our own existence with that of the wider group inevitably lead to the development of a code of right and wrong, to the evolution of an ethical system. As in Mutual Aid, Kropotkin observes the way in which nearly all development and progress in both animal and human life is propelled by the extension of mutual aid and solidarity. In short, solidarity for Kropotkin constitutes the basis of morality. Given that it supports his theses on moral philosophy, it inevitably informs his political ideology also. Indeed, the role of the

76 concept of solidarity is such that it occupies a core position within Kropotkin’s morphology. We can learn more about the further shape and character of Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity from his critical account of the development of moral philosophy from the time of the thinkers of Ancient Greece onwards. While it is unnecessary to conduct a full exegesis of Kropotkin’s entire account, it is useful for us to examine the intellectual moments in time that he saw as holding particular importance. Kropotkin’s own interpretation of the work of various thinkers provides a relatively detailed impression of his own ethical system, and in particular the nature of his concept of solidarity and the place it holds in his morphology.

The individual-collective bond We have said that the ineliminable component of the concept of solidarity is the individual-collective bond. Every known usage of solidarity employs this central feature, and, of course, as is evidenced at various points in his writings, Kropotkin’s is no different.

In Mutual Aid, in a section devoted to a study of ‘Mutual Aid Among Savages’, Kropotkin notes the shift from the Rousseauian idealisation of human nature in the eighteenth century to the exaggerated notion of the ‘bestial savage’ promulgated by many of his own contemporaries. The reality, Kropotkin states, is that the ‘savage’ is neither ‘an ideal of virtue, nor is he an ideal of “savagery”’ (Kropotkin, 2006: p. 91). However, one characteristic of primitive humans, according to Kropotkin, is that they identify their own existence with that of the tribe. This quality has been developed and maintained by necessity in the struggle for existence; without it, Kropotkin says, humankind would not have attained its current level of development (ibid.). Herein lies a crucial link between Kropotkin’s notion of mutual aid and solidarity as a concept with an internally complex morphology. For here Kropotkin lays out in direct terms the ineliminable component contained in all conceptions of solidarity; he explicitly refers to the fundamental bond between the individual and the collective. In his Ethics, Kropotkin states that Darwin himself identified the instinct of ‘mutual sympathy’ as predominant and as the basis of the moral conscience. In the same instinct, Kropotkin argues, we find the origin of ‘feelings of benevolence’ and of ‘partial identification of the individual with the group which are the starting-point of all the higher ethical feelings’ (Kropotkin, 1993: p. 16). Kropotkin thus highlights the

77 importance of the individual making a connection between their own identity and that of the wider group. According to Kropotkin the ‘higher representatives’ of each class of animals (humans amongst the mammals, for instance) exhibit higher levels of individual identification with the interests of the group. This, he claims, points to the natural origin of all ethical feelings. The fact that we observe more prominent tendencies of individual-collective identification amongst the more developed species suggests that the trait has been developed through a gradual process of evolution.

As we have seen, the ineliminable component alone is insufficient to communicate a full concept. In isolation, the notion of the individual-collective bond tells us nothing substantial or interesting about Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity. In order to gain a full picture of Kropotkin’s concept we must ascertain the additional attributes that are secured to the ineliminable component and which furnish it with further meaning. These idea-components are determined by processes of logical and cultural adjacency.

Universal inclusion One logically necessary category of meaning refers to the subject of the ineliminable component. In other words, in order to gain a full(er) understanding of Kropotkin’s concept we must establish who exactly is involved in the individual-collective bond. Or, more properly, we need to know the identity of the collective; of whom it is comprised. This aspect also gives rise to the questions (to be dealt with later on) of why and how the collective is comprised in such a way; what are the criteria for inclusion?

In his introduction to Mutual Aid, Kropotkin, refers to the ‘conscience … of human solidarity’ as the ‘recognition of the force that is borrowed by each man from the practice of mutual aid; of the close dependency of every one’s happiness upon the happiness of all’ (Kropotkin, 2006: p. xvi). The suggestion here is that solidarity entails a widespread notion of interdependence, a social arrangement whereby the well-being of each member of the group is in some way bound up with that of the other members and indeed with that of the collective as a whole. However, despite the seemingly inclusive language used by Kropotkin, we are not given enough information here to be sure that the collective to which the ineliminable component

78 refers is universal, since Kropotkin’s use of ‘every one’ and ‘all’ may apply merely to those who belong to a narrower social group demarcated along the lines of tribe or nation or some other designation. Indeed, in his discussion of mutual aid in primitive human societies, Kropotkin remarks that the solidarity practiced within the tribe does not extend beyond that very particular community; it does not apply to other tribes. Each clan is a separate unity; this is what marks out the primitive social organisation from later, more developed societies (ibid.: p. 92). So whilst recognising the limits of solidarity – at least at a certain point in human history – Kropotkin also refers here to the idea that positive development is characterised by a broadening of the scope of solidarity, since ‘more developed societies’ exhibit a wider circle of inclusion. However, despite the progression of solidarity since the time of primitive human societies, the constitution of the collective is still not universal. Indeed, Kropotkin compares the practice of mutual aid in contemporary human society (in 1902) unfavourably to that of various insect species, concluding that often solidarity is not extended to the whole species, but is limited to only a specific sub-section thereof. ‘In that respect’, he writes, somewhat irreverently, ‘[bees, ants and termites] evidently have not attained a degree of development which we do not find even among our political, scientific, and religious leaders’ (ibid.: p. 15). Kropotkin also asserts then that the social role of the elite precludes them by default from involvement in the solidary collective. It is not that its members are actively excluded by those who do belong to the group, but more that their structural positions of power and privilege have prevented them from developing the practice of mutual aid to the requisite degree. However, although this hints at Kropotkin’s evaluation of the state of solidarity in the early twentieth century, it does not provide us with any useful information about his concept in a more normative sense; it does not tell us what he thinks solidarity could or ought to be.

Nevertheless, Kropotkin’s designation of ‘human solidarity’ does seem to hint at a potentially universally inclusive conception of the collective, and his association of ‘development’ with the notion of a widening collective certainly confirms his evaluation as to its desirability. Of primitive human societies, Kropotkin notes that inter-tribal relations, though not necessarily antagonistic, were certainly not habitually solidaristic. Whilst tribes may, from time to time, share resources and cooperate in various other ways, there is certainly no obligation for them to do so in the same way

79 that there is within the tribe itself. As such, Kropotkin observes, ‘the life of the savage is divided into two sets of actions, and appears under two different ethical aspects: the relations within the tribe, and the relations with outsiders’ (ibid.: p. 93). In other words, the bounds of solidarity are limited; the collective to which solidarity refers is demarcated in a quite specific way. As a result, we observe the development of a dual morality, which is manifest in the difference between ‘inter-tribal’ law and common law. This dual morality, says Kropotkin, has been inherited by modern societies and is clearly manifest in the differences between domestic and international law, for instance. As far as contemporary examples go, one might point to the different rights accorded to asylum seekers in comparison to domestic citizens. In the United Kingdom, for instance, asylum seekers given limited leave to enter or remain in the UK may be subject to conditions restricting their employment and access to welfare and other services to which British citizens are entitled (Immigration Act 1971, c. 77: p. 4). The notion of a dual morality is thus clearly manifest in the law, which prescribes one set of rules for citizens and another, less generous set for outsiders. In times of war, notes Kropotkin, a double conception of morality can lead not merely to a negative withdrawal of responsibility for those seen as ‘foreign’, but to the positive glorification of their suffering; it allows for ‘the most revolting cruelties’ to be viewed as ‘so many claims upon the admiration of the tribe’ (Kropotkin, 2006: p. 93). The jingoistic behaviours of western governments and media may be cited here as clear examples of this tendency from our very recent history. A particularly notable instance is the Sun newspaper’s infamous ‘GOTCHA’ headline in the aftermath of the deaths of 323 sailors following the sinking of the Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano by British forces during the Falklands/Malvinas Conflict in 1982 (Snow, 1982). The language used in the headline and corresponding report and its implied message contains a clearly antagonistic distinction between an ‘us’ and a ‘them’, (the sub-headline read ‘Our lads sink gunboat and hole cruiser’ [ibid.]). The consequence of such discourse is that any harm done to the ‘enemy’ is seen as a good thing and is exalted as such. However, remarks Kropotkin, there has been significant progress in the eradication of this dual morality, but ‘while we have in some measure extended our ideas of solidarity – in theory, at least – over the nation, and partly over other nations as well’, this progress has come at the expense of more local bonds of solidarity (Kropotkin, 2006: p. 93). Kropotkin notes here the difficulty of extending solidarity across tribal and national boundaries whilst

80 maintaining bonds of unity within existing communities. However, in remarking upon the progress of humankind in overcoming this double ethical standard (at least to some extent), he provides us with a glimpse of his solidaristic vision: Kropotkin clearly sees the widening of the circle of solidarity as representative of ethical progress.

The broadening scope of solidarity is a trend which Kropotkin traces throughout human history. A particularly important feature of pre-feudal ‘village communities’, he notes, is ‘the gradual extension of the circle of men13 embraced by the feelings of solidarity’ (ibid.: p. 112). For Kropotkin, this is evidenced by the federation of tribes into stems and the joining of stems into confederations. Later on, in Europe, he observes, this was manifest in the development of nations – conceived as cultural communities quite distinct from states, it must be stressed – such as Merovingian France and the Russia of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. These nations were held together solely by ‘a community of language, and a tacit agreement of the small republics to take their dukes from none but one special family’ (ibid.: p. 113). Kropotkin refers here to a natural development whereby the scope of solidarity is gradually extended from its tribal base to include those who were previously deemed outsiders. Though inhibited at various points by the wars and conflicts that occur both as the inevitable products of large scale migration and as the consequences of the expansionist tendencies of military authority, this process of the extension of solidarity has been at work throughout human history. Indeed, where Kropotkin cites nation formation, we might take as tangible examples of solidarity’s development from our more recent history the evolution of the global justice movement and progress made in overcoming racial, religious, gender and various other forms of oppression and exclusion. Following the slaughter and destruction brought about by two world wars in the twentieth century, even the establishment of such formal and hierarchical institutions as the European Union and the United Nations may be understood, if not as products of a widening circle of solidarity then perhaps in some way as elite organisational concessions to popular demands for solidarity, however strained the notion of European solidarity has become in light of the ongoing debt

13 Despite the implied exclusivity of Kropotkin’s archaic use of ‘men’, we can safely assume that the term is in fact used to signify humanity in a general sense and not merely men. Indeed, in ‘Anarchist Morality’, Kropotkin emphasises the inclusion of women, proclaiming that ‘It is in the name of equality that we are determined to have no more prostituted, exploited, deceived and governed men and women’ (Kropotkin, 2002a: p. 99). 81 crisis. For, indeed, insists Kropotkin, contrary to those accounts that misrepresent human history as one long episode of bloody struggle, societies have nearly always put in place measures that aim at the very avoidance of violent conflict and at the provision of alternative dispute resolutions (ibid.: p. 113). More than that, Kropotkin remarks in his Ethics, despite the occurrence of ‘temporary regressive movements’, the overwhelming characteristic of the development of human societies is ‘the tendency of always widening the current conception of human solidarity and justice, and of constantly improving the character of our mutual relations’ (Kropotkin, 1993: pp. 17-18).

Further, Kropotkin argues, the gradual expansion of the circle of solidarity is a necessary condition of the continuation of solidarity as such. Kropotkin emphasises on several occasions in Mutual Aid that the historical instances in which human solidarity has been undermined (by individual or factional interests) have been precipitated by a tendency to halt the extension of the circle of inclusion. One prominent example is the downfall of the medieval ‘free cities’ in feudal Europe, the social organisation of which was characterised by the same current of mutual aid as were the pre-feudal village communities (ibid.). In contrast to previous societies, however, in the medieval city this current of solidarity was reinforced by a new model of organisation which reflected the growing diversity of crafts and occupations: the guilds.

A guild, to borrow Sheilagh Ogilvie’s definition, was ‘an association of people who share some common characteristic and pursue some common purpose’ (Ogilvie, 2011: p. 19). There are a number of shared characteristics around which a guild may be formed, but by far the most common is that of occupation. Certainly, it is this type of guild to which Kropotkin refers in Mutual Aid, and he identifies the principles of common enterprise and equality in mutual relations as their almost universal characteristics (Kropotkin, 2006: pp. 140-141). Ultimately, explains Kropotkin, the guilds represented institutional manifestations of solidarity; they were ‘but a further development of the same principles [of mutual aid] which we saw at work in the gens and the village community’, and they ‘answered to a deeply inrooted want of human nature’: the need to feel and to provide ‘mutual support in all circumstances and in all accidents of life’ (ibid.: pp. 140; 145). Indeed, throughout the first half of the second

82 millennium, the federations that existed between ‘small territorial units’, the guilds and the cities represented for Kropotkin an ‘immense attempt at securing mutual aid and support on a grand scale’ (ibid.: p. 171). Though largely successful in achieving solidarity, freedom and progress, the system would eventually perish in the sixteenth century as centralised states, ‘reconstructed on the old Roman pattern’, came into existence (ibid.: pp. 177-178). The downfall of the medieval city was precipitated in part, says Kropotkin, because ‘mutual aid and support cannot be limited to a small association; they must spread to its surroundings, or else the surroundings will absorb the association’ (ibid.: p. 179). As such, the failure of the citizenry to accept outsiders as potential contributors to city life led to sharp class divisions between the established burghers (who reaped the benefits of communal trade and land) and newcomers (who were left only with the value of their own labour) (ibid.). The overemphasis of the economy on commerce and industry at the expense of agriculture led to further division between the city and its surrounding villages. However, for Kropotkin, the foremost catalyst of the decay of the medieval city was the influence of Roman law and the Christian church. Indeed, their promotion of the idea of the strongly-centralised state under the divine authority of a king hastened a fundamental shift away from the leading ideals of ‘Self-reliance and federalism, the sovereignty of each group, and the construction of the political body from the simple to the composite’, which had served as fertile soil for the germination of solidaristic relations (ibid.: p. 181). Ultimately, according to Kropotkin’s reading, the medieval city succumbed to the centralising power of the emerging states because of a failure to extend the scope of solidarity. Solidarity in Kropotkin’s scheme therefore, is a necessarily outward-reaching or expanding concept. If its bounds become fixed, if they are not encouraged to widen, solidarity is inevitably swallowed up by its external surroundings. Of course, the logical product of a concept of solidarity which includes the idea-component of a necessarily broadening circle of inclusion is the normative notion of universality. The logically necessary category of the subject of the ineliminable component is therefore satisfied. Kropotkin’s ideal of solidarity conforms to a model of universal inclusion and, as such, he advocates a project of solidarity which involves an expansion of the collective – of those who are involved in mutual relations of solidarity – so as to eventually include the whole of humankind.

Although the notion of a subject is logically necessary to the ineliminable component, its particular instance – in this case the notion of the universal collective – is contingent and is most usefully understood as being determined by culture. This refers to the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ of the particular decontestation of the ineliminable component we have observed in Kropotkin’s writings, particularly in relation to the context provided by notable events, institutional practices, influential theories, popular beliefs and dominant discourses. The universalism of Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity, the notion of the ever-widening circle of solidarity betrays the influence on Kropotkin of the moral philosophy of the French Epicurean thinker Jean-Marie Guyau (1854-1888). In order to appreciate the way in which Kropotkin’s concept is culturally moulded, it is necessary to review the fundaments of Guyau’s thought and remark upon the way in which they impacted upon Kropotkin’s own theory.

The influence of Guyau Though little known as a philosopher today, for Kropotkin, Guyau was the most important ethicist of the late nineteenth century. In his Ethics, Kropotkin effectively endorses the approach of Guyau, whose philosophy aimed to free morality both from the supernatural and from external coercion or duty. Whilst also rejecting the utilitarian emphasis on personal, material interests and the striving for happiness, Guyau’s ethics were founded on a conception of ‘life’, in a very broad sense. According to Guyau, ‘life’ represents ‘the motive underlying all our actions’, and, as such, ethics should consist in ‘the science which has for object all the means of preserving and enlarging material and intellectual life’ (Guyau, 2012: p. 75). Moral teaching must seek to ‘increase the intensity of life’ by enlarging ‘the range of activity under all its forms’ (ibid.: p. 76). In short, the goal of moral philosophy must be to provide a framework for the growth and development of variety in all areas of human activity. Human morality is derived from the very need to live a full, productive, varied life, since the ‘existence of a certain impersonal duty is created by the power-of- acting itself’ (ibid.: p. 91). In other words, to possess an ability or a power is to be obligated to exercise it, or, to use Guyau’s preferred maxim: ‘I can, therefore I must’ (ibid.: p. 89). For Guyau, the individual’s recognition of their capacity for doing translates into ‘duty’: ‘To feel inwardly the greatest that one is capable of doing is really the first consciousness of what it is one’s duty to do’ (ibid.: p. 91). This results,

84 says Guyau, in ‘moral fecundity’, whereby the very condition of life is that it must ‘diffuse itself for others, and, if necessary, should yield itself up’ (ibid.: p. 209). This leads in turn to the practice of self-sacrifice, since when we feel that we are capable of more than that which serves merely to preserve and expand our own lives, we offer up our surplus energies for the service of others. The same principle applies also to our feeling of sympathy: the consciousness that our capacity for sympathy is more than is required for our own self-preservation impels us to expend it on others irrespective of the consequences. The nature of ‘life’, then, results in an ‘equivalent of duty’ that occurs throughout the natural world: ‘The plant cannot prevent itself from flowering. Sometimes to flower means for it to die. No matter, the sap still rises’ (ibid.: p. 92).

Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity is culturally shaped by Guyau’s notion of ‘life’ in three clear ways. First, when applied to the individual, Guyau’s notion of surplus sympathy serves to explain the human capacity – nay, tendency – for mutual aid. Indeed, one might argue further that all solidaristic actions can be seen as a product of the assertion of ‘I can, therefore I must’. Second, the notion of capacity-as- obligation negates the requirement for an external authority to fulfil the role of moral arbiter. The fact that moral conceptions are drawn from the nature of life itself allows for us to do away with metaphysical enquiry and, indeed, with the institutions of church and state. Third, Kropotkin’s idea of the widening circle of solidarity closely reflects Guyau’s conception of life’s necessary expansion. Indeed, Guyau’s claim that a full, productive life is dependent upon its expansion can be applied directly to Kropotkin’s decontestation of the universal collective. Kropotkin’s idea of the necessarily widening circle of inclusion is essentially an application of Guyau’s notion of the fecundity of life to the ineliminable component of solidarity. It provides a cultural mould from which a universal decontestation of the individual-collective bond is cast. For if an anarchist society is to flourish, insists Kropotkin, individuals must dedicate their emotional, intellectual and physical faculties to ‘the service of the human race without asking for anything in return’ (Kropotkin, 2002: p. 107). This reading is supported by Alan Ritter, who understands Kropotkin’s notion of the ‘extended neighbourhood’ as requiring ‘outgoing relationships’ (Ritter, 1980: p. 56). Ritter characterises such relationships as ‘benevolence’, but acknowledges that he is actually referring to that which Kropotkin calls mutual aid (ibid.: pp. 56-57). It is the

85 reciprocal character and the essential equality with which acts of mutual aid are imbued which reinforces social solidarity and which enables the extension of ‘neighbourhood’ to the human race as a whole.

The desirability of solidarity In order for a concept to be fleshed out from its ineliminable component and in order for it to play a meaningful part in a wider ideological morphology, it may require an evaluation as to its desirability. For, an ideology’s core is not always comprised of concepts to which it ascribes positive value. The concept of domination may appear within the core of many anarchist ideologies, for instance, yet it is clearly seen by anarchists as a ‘disvalue’, as something which must be negated, rather than as a normative goal (Gordon, 2007b: p. 37). Further, an ideology’s conceptual morphology may bring into play other concepts which must be either explicitly rejected or addressed in a critical way. The liberal decontestation of the concept of liberty as non-constraint, for instance, necessitates if not an a priori rejection, then at least some critical perspective on notions such as constraint, authority and power. Whilst we know enough of Kropotkin’s account already to be certain that this is patently not the case with his concept of solidarity (that solidarity is seen by Kropotkin as a positive thing) it is nevertheless worthwhile to explore the normative value he attaches to it.

Kropotkin’s explanation for the importance of solidarity is, as ever, a naturalistic one, and is best understood within the context of the development of evolutionary theory and the adjacent debates about human nature. Kropotkin introduces his Mutual Aid thesis with the assertion that the received wisdom of mutual competition as the law of nature is fundamentally not supported by scientific observation (ibid.: p. xiii). In fact, argues Kropotkin (citing the work of both Darwin and the German-Russian zoologist Karl Kessler), besides the law of mutual struggle, nature exhibits a further law of mutual aid, which is of far greater importance ‘for the progressive evolution of the species’ (ibid.: p. xiii). The significance of this hypothesis is not to be underestimated. Indeed, during the second half of the nineteenth century, evolutionary theory was exerting huge influence on the emerging social sciences and on moral and political philosophy. Claims made about the evolution of human beings as a species, particularly in relation to the development of human morality, shaped

86 discourses on how society should – and could – be arranged. For this reason, Kropotkin felt it crucial to establish the facts of evolution, and felt the need to provide a robust antidote to what he saw as the bastardised versions of evolutionary theory that were dominating scientific and philosophical discussion. As such, Kropotkin’s central purpose in Mutual Aid was to prove, in opposition to the social Darwinists, that the factor of mutual aid is in fact more important in the evolution of species than that of mutual struggle. Accordingly, Kropotkin argues, Darwin was ‘quite right when he saw in man’s social qualities the chief factor for his further evolution, and [his] vulgarizers are entirely wrong when they maintain the contrary’ (Kropotkin, 2006: p. 91). Indeed, Kropotkin correctly points out that Darwin, in The Descent of Man (1871), placed significant emphasis on the role of sociability in human evolution. As such, he states his intention to wrest back the legacy of Darwin from those who have sought to use evolutionary theory to promote the notion that the Hobbesian struggle of each against all constitutes the principal driving force of species’ development (Kropotkin, 2006: p. xiii).

Kropotkin locates his argument in opposition to two strands of thought, both of which he sees as having formed misplaced conclusions with regard to the character of human nature. Hobbes saw human beings’ natural state of existence as one of perpetual struggle of each against all (see Hobbes, 1996), a view which was promulgated in the nineteenth century by the evolutionary theory of T. H. Huxley (see Huxley, 1970). Conversely, according to the Rousseauian version that was so influential in the previous century, the state of nature was relatively benign (see Rousseau, 1997a). According to Kropotkin, both the pessimism of Hobbes and Huxley and the overly optimistic perception of Rousseau are unfounded. Although both strands of thought identify quasi-realities, each exaggerates the importance of their own version and neither affords the other sufficient recognition. For whilst there are innumerable examples in nature of struggle and slaughter, there are equal if not more instances of mutual support within single species, or at least within identifiable societies. As such, Kropotkin concludes, sociability is just as much a ‘natural law’ as mutual struggle (Kropotkin, 2006: pp. 4-5). However, whilst it is impossible to ascertain numerically the precise balance between the two factors in terms of their bearing on evolution, brief observation of the natural world tells us that the fittest species – those which have the best chances of survival and have attained a higher

87 level of development – are those that practice mutual aid. As such, although mutual aid and struggle between individuals are both laws of nature, in Kropotkin’s view it is the former which is more important as a factor of evolution (ibid.: p. 5).

Kropotkin cites various examples of the importance of solidarity in the animal world. With reference to ants, bees and termites, he demonstrates the way in which species both survive and develop through mutual aid. Such species, the isolated member of which cuts a diminutive and defenceless figure, would simply not have survived – much less progressed – were it not for their practice of mutual aid. Indeed, where they exist the anti-social tendencies are gradually eliminated, because solidarity proves much more advantageous for the species than egoistic behaviour. ‘The cunningest and the shrewdest’, explains Kropotkin, ‘are eliminated in favour of those who understand the advantages of sociable life and mutual support’ (ibid.: p. 15). Here, then, Kropotkin establishes the manner in which solidarity drives the evolution of species. Those which practice mutual aid survive, whilst those who act egoistically perish in the struggle for existence. In this way, solidarity gradually attains a central importance in species’ modes of living, and the development of species’ faculties and intelligence grows in proportion to it. Inevitably, therefore, the most sociable species become the most successful, and Kropotkin holds human beings to be the most successful of all.

Further, Kropotkin holds solidarity – expressed through mutual aid – to be the origin of ethical feelings. This is evidenced, he claims, by the broad consistency of moral conceptions across the species. ‘The ant, the bird, the marmot, the savage have read neither Kant nor the Fathers of the Church nor even Moses’, he tells us, ‘And yet all have the same idea of good and evil’ (Kropotkin, 2002: p. 91). This idea is expressed in the principle that ‘what is considered as good … is that which is useful for the preservation of the race; and that which is considered evil is that which is hurtful for race preservation’ (ibid.). So nature does not, as is claimed by some, teach us ‘a-moralism’, but in fact lends us ‘the very ideas of bad and good’ (Kropotkin, 1993: p. 16). Kropotkin’s naturalistic explanation of the origin of moral conceptions can be clearly linked to his concept of solidarity, since moral acts occur in consonance with solidarity’s characteristic bond between the individual and the collective. The study of human development, he argues, clearly shows ‘the co-

88 ordination of the individual will with the will and the purpose of the whole’; in the process of our evolution, the human being ‘had to become accustomed to identifying his “I” with the social “We”’, and learnt to ‘think of his ego in no other way than through the conception of his group’ (ibid.: pp. 64; 65). This process – effectively the conception and gradual establishment of solidarity – necessitates ‘the working out of certain rules of social morality’ (ibid.: p. 64). For Kropotkin, solidarity (manifest in mutual aid) is not only what has enabled both the survival and development of human beings as a species. It constitutes the basis of our moral conceptions; to act in a solidaristic way is to act in a moral way, and this fact alone attests to the value assigned to the concept in Kropotkin’s wider morphology.

Community As we have seen, Kropotkin’s central purpose in Mutual Aid is to counter the assertion – given an illusory scientific credence by the social Darwinists – that the Hobbesian war of each against all constitutes human beings’ normal state of existence and that the preservation of social order requires the arbitration of an external Leviathan. For this to be the case, says Kropotkin, would contradict all that we have learned from the study of nature. For humankind to have developed and to have prospered through struggle rather than mutual aid would set our species starkly apart from the vast majority of others, whose practice of mutual aid has lent them the best chances of survival (Kropotkin, 2006: pp. 62-63). The principal error of Hobbes – indeed of all the contractarians – Kropotkin tells us, was to assume that human society was preceded by less cohesive modes of living, to think that the earliest members of the human race lived in small, isolated family groups. With the benefit of subsequent scientific discovery, notes Kropotkin, we now know that this was not the case: ‘As far as we can go back in the palæo-ethnology of mankind’, he observes, ‘we find men living in societies’ (ibid.: p. 64). As such, the notion of community attached to the ineliminable component in Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity is a far broader one than that which might be decontested as a small family group, or some other subsection of society. ‘Community’, in Kropotkin’s scheme can be applied to a far wider network of social relations: to society generally. The significance of this point in relation to Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity is easily comprehended. Given the social complexity exhibited in early human societies, he argues, given that such

89 complicated modes of social organisation were developed and maintained amongst humans ‘who stood at the lowest known degree of development’, and were enforced by ‘no kind of authority besides the authority of public opinion’, the extent to which the social instincts are deeply entrenched in human nature is clearly apparent (ibid.: pp. 70-71). The knowledge that early humans lived in societies, that societies actually predated smaller, family-based groups enables Kropotkin to place solidarity (for him, the basis of society itself) at the heart of his conception of human nature. More than this, it anchors the notion of community to the ineliminable component in such a way that allows for the broadening scope of solidarity which we identified earlier in the chapter.

But whilst the abstract notion of community morphologically helps to define the parameters of solidarity, the existence of strong community ties in an empirical sense also serves to reinforce the feeling of solidarity by encouraging a sense of common interest and facilitating interaction. Kropotkin gives an example of this in his account of the emergence of friendly societies and the flourishing of voluntarism in the nineteenth century, phenomena he views as institutional manifestations of solidarity. His favourite and most cited example is that of the British Lifeboat Association, whose crews, he notes, consist of volunteers ready to sacrifice their own lives in order to rescue complete strangers, even when there is little chance of success (ibid.: pp. 226-227). For Kropotkin, it is an inbuilt aspect of human psychology, ‘nurtured by thousands of years of human social life’, which impels us to act in such ways. But what of those instances whereby we ignore pleas for help and do not come to the aid of those in need? Kropotkin cites an (unverifiable, but certainly not inconceivable) example of ‘men who were drowned in the Serpentine in the presence of a crowd, out of which no one moved for their rescue’ (ibid.: p. 228). The explanation, he argues, is that since we are a product of both ‘inherited instincts’ and ‘education’, in those – like the lifeboat volunteers – amongst whom solidarity tends to flourish, the tendency can often be attributed to ‘common occupations’ and ‘every-day contact with one another’. Conversely, in the cities – as with the Serpentine incident – ‘the absence of common interest nurtures indifference’ (ibid.: p. 228). For Kropotkin, then, the feeling of solidarity has its root in human nature, but the strength of the bond that results is dependent upon environmental factors,

90 namely that of common interest, of a collective cause, both of which are reinforced by the existence of strong community ties.

Community gives rise to other important conditions for the flourishing of solidarity. In particular, the aspects of familiarity and regular social interaction serve to enhance the strength of solidaristic ties. For Kropotkin, solidarity is both the basis for and the product of social life; neither can thrive in the absence of the other. Social life would not be possible lest for the ties of solidarity between individuals and the group, whilst equally that solidarity would never come into being if it were not for the social character of human interactions. Indeed, for Kropotkin, the notions of familiarity and the aspect of regular social contact serve to enhance solidarity by enabling a shared identity and a consciousness of a common interest to take root. This rule accounts for the fact, he contends, that social solidarity is more consistent amongst the industrial working classes than it is amongst the bourgeoisie. By the simple fact of their living in closer proximity with one another, the poorer members of society are bound to engage more frequently in social exchange. This, along with the necessity borne out of the conditions of hardship in which they live, inevitably gives rise to a greater feeling of social solidarity (ibid.: pp. 234-238). The aspect of community, connoting reciprocal awareness in all areas of life, thus takes on significant importance in Kropotkin’s scheme. The ‘richness’ and ‘pervasiveness’ of Kropotkin’s notion of community has led Alan Ritter to understand Kropotkin’s anarchism in terms of an ‘extended neighbourhood’ or ‘pervasive community’ (Ritter, 1980: p. 58). It is the ‘benevolent and solidaristic’ relations that we often find in small neighbourhoods, he observes, that Kropotkin wishes to extend to ‘the context of society at large’ (ibid.).

Despite his analysis that reciprocal awareness (and thus solidarity) is more abundant amongst the industrial proletariat, Kropotkin insists that the habits of mutual aid are maintained even amongst the higher strata of society. Although attitudes of the property-owning classes towards working people are often characterised by a cruel indifference, he says, such behaviour is caused not merely by the egoistic tendencies in human nature, but is exacerbated by the ‘stratification’ (as opposed to familiarity) brought on by feelings of distrust and fear promoted by the agents of the church and the state (Kropotkin, 2006: p. 239). Furthermore, it is not demonstrative

91 of a lack of mutual aid per se in the middle and upper classes. For amongst themselves, notes Kropotkin, the bourgeoisie practice mutual aid much as do the working classes (ibid.: p. 240). In this case then, it is not a complete absence of solidarity that leads to poor quality mutual relations, but rather the barriers formed by class divisions and a lack of familiarity that inhibit the widening of the circle of inclusion.

To further illustrate the importance of familiarity and social interaction, Kropotkin looks to the host of associations and societies which sprung up in the nineteenth century around the sciences, the arts, sport and all manner of common interests. Such associations inevitably bred familiarity between individuals and provided platforms for regular social exchange. For Kropotkin, their beneficial consequence was that they served to ‘break down the screens erected by States between different nationalities’ and cultivate a ‘conscience of international solidarity’ (ibid.: p. 232). Kropotkin’s use of language here is telling. By forming bonds based on common interests, rather than remaining within traditional circles of solidarity founded on the ideas of nation, language and ethno-cultural factors, we serve to dissolve the barriers between previously disparate groups, to transcend the differences which hitherto kept us apart. This represents the essence of the necessarily broadening character of solidarity; the process of reaching outward involves the dissolution of divisive relations and the constitution of new ones based on mutual aid.

Common interest and shared identity Kropotkin’s ideal of the widening circle of solidarity is also morphologically interlinked to the notions of shared identity and common interest. For Kropotkin, solidarity involves an act of identification – at some or other level of consciousness – on the part of the individual of their own existence with that of the society to which they belong. There must be some form of recognition by each member that their own identity is inevitably and irreversibly bound up with that of the collective and each other member of it. According to Kropotkin, the extent to which this self-identification with the collective is played out in primitive societies is such that the acts of each individual come to be considered as tribal affairs. Subsequently, the regulation of individuals’ behaviour takes place according to various unwritten codes which emerge as the products of common experience as to what is beneficial or harmful to

92 the tribe (ibid.: p. 91). Those acts which benefit the tribe are ‘good’; those which are harmful are ‘bad’. Although many of the superstitious explanations attributed to such ‘common laws’ are plainly absurd, the primitive human obeys them, even in the event of their inconvenience. To do so has become habitual, since these laws are firmly rooted in the collective memory (ibid.: p. 92). From shared identity stems common interest: the interests of the collective become prioritised in the consciousness of the individual.

The notions of shared identity and common cause are supported morphologically by another of Kropotkin’s core concepts. The proximity of the concept of equality is of crucial importance for this aspect of solidarity’s decontestation, since it serves to preserve the necessary conditions of existence for shared identity and common interest. For the maintenance of equality serves to prevent the development of stratification and of partial interests – both of which inevitably undermine the aspects of shared identity and common interest attached to Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity. Kropotkin provides empirical examples of this conceptual interdependence, citing the habitual mutual aid of the European peasantry as proof that even in the age of ‘reckless individualism’ mutual support is maintained amongst the masses. In particular, he emphasises the importance of communal possessions, which ‘maintain in village life a nucleus of customs and habits of mutual aid’, which serve to act as a check on the egoistic tendencies (ibid.: p. 200). For Kropotkin then, the institution of common ownership represents the manifestation of his concept of equality, which in turn discourages the erosion of the crucial elements of shared identity and common cause.

Clearly, for the historian of solidarity, the key development of the nineteenth century is the emergence of the socialist movement. Indeed, the continuous renewal of trades unions and the growth of the practice of workers’ striking in spite of the very real threat of persecution by the state are characterised by Kropotkin as evidence of the resilience of the mutual aid tendency (ibid.: pp. 219-221). He also explains how, for the first time, with the emergence of ‘sympathy strikes’, circles of solidarity began to extend across boundaries of trade and region and even nationality (ibid.: pp. 221- 222). In this sense, the emergence of an international class of industrial workers served to provide a common cause and shared identity which could apply to a much

93 larger collective and which led to the growth of a transnational movement for which class solidarity was a key principle. With the growth of the industrial proletariat, then, solidarity was beginning to transcend the boundaries which had previously limited it to quite local parameters.

The structural inclusion of the notion of common interest within Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity ensures that interdependent social relations remain benevolent and do not degenerate into domination and exploitation. For Kropotkin does not overlook the human capacity to exercise power over others – how else could he account for the existence of institutions such as capital and the state? Nevertheless, he holds that the divisions caused by such institutions are artificial and that the state serves only to cloak the fundamental identity of human beings’ basic interests. As such, in order to reveal the natural unity of our basic interests, we must throw off the yoke of existing social relations. ‘Let us arrange matters so that each man may see his interest bound up with the interests of others’, urges Kropotkin, ‘then you will no longer have to feel his evil passions’ (Kropotkin, 1887: p. 12). It is precisely because human beings have the potential for evil that we should construct society so as to negate opportunities for domination and exploitation. Given social and political arrangements that discourage egoism and individual competition, runs Kropotkin’s argument, we become aware of the interdependence of social relations and the essential harmony of our basic interests. The aspect of common interest is locked into Kropotkin’s concept, is affixed to the ineliminable component partly because of the presence of the concept of equality within the core of Kropotkin’s morphology. Kropotkin’s insistence upon equality in all spheres of life serves to provide the requisite conditions for general awareness of a fundamental common interest to gain traction. Since social division – that between the bourgeoisie and the masses being the most prominent – is caused by the separation of interests that arises from inequality, to promote equality is therefore to expose the artificial nature of such divisions and to reinforce the notion of common interest in the collective consciousness.

Kropotkin’s inclusion of the component of common interest has led George Crowder to the conclusion that Kropotkin’s is a ‘mechanical’ concept of solidarity – the label assigned by Durkheim to the type of solidarity that results from similarities, as

94 opposed to the ‘organic’ type that is produced by the interdependence brought about by differentiation (Crowder, 1991: p. 141; Durkheim, 1984). It is Kropotkin’s reliance on mechanical solidarity, argues Crowder, that leads him to promote, in place of Adam Smith’s exalted division of labour (Smith, 1999a), an ‘integrated labour’ which allows for the individual to engage in both physical and intellectual work, in both ‘brain work’ and ‘manual work’, as Kropotkin puts it (Kropotkin, 1985: p. 169). The increased specialisation brought about by the division of labour, argues Kropotkin, has served to shackle the individual – and this applies to both manual and intellectual workers – to one very specific area of production, with the result that, to borrow from Marxian terminology, the worker is alienated from both the process and the product of his labour (Marx, 2000). The solution, says Kropotkin, is to integrate labour, to reorganise work so that each individual is encouraged to partake in a diverse range of tasks. Integrated labour ensures that ‘the greatest sum total of wellbeing can be obtained’, argues Kropotkin, and, further, human creative faculties are given their fullest expression when we are able to exercise our ‘usually-varied capacities to several pursuits in the farm, the workshop, the factory, the study or the studio, instead of being riveted for life to one of these pursuits only’ (Kropotkin, 1985: p. 18). Crowder is critical of Kropotkin here for justifying this versatility in terms of human perfection, for positing the full development of the individual as the goal of integrated labour. ‘It is reasonable to suppose that a person will be more fully developed if he does more than make pins’, concedes Crowder, evoking Smith, ‘but less obvious that his potential can be realised only if he becomes a jack of all trades’ (Crowder, 1991: p. 143). According to Crowder, Kropotkin’s real purpose in promoting integrated labour is to ‘create an egalitarian society held together by a solidarity of likeness’, and to ensure that ‘no classes or elites will reassert the inequalities of the past’ (ibid.). To frame this criticism in terms of conceptual morphology, Crowder thus points to an apparent structural tension in Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity between the components of common interest and individual development. Since, for Crowder, Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity is ‘mechanical’ in that it appeals to interdependence through similarity rather than differentiation, in emphasising the importance of common interest it cannot also adhere to a perfectionist conception of individual development. In order to maintain structural integrity, Crowder suggests, Kropotkin must resolve the question as to how his concept’s ‘reliance on shared identity can be reconciled with the important goal of

95 individuality’ (ibid.). Crowder supports Durkheim’s argument that the advance of individuality can be historically linked to an increasingly specialised division of labour. ‘There appears to be a significant connection between the growth of individual expertise in technical matters and the emergence of individual self- direction in general’, he argues (ibid.: pp. 144-145). In other words, the more the individual becomes specialised in their own field, the more they come to realise their potential. According to this logic, the apparent contradiction in Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity between common interest and individual development would seem irresolvable. But the fact is that Kropotkin, like Marx before him, simply does not accept that the division of labour drives the development of individuality. Although he recognises a degree of benefit in terms of economic efficiency, he disputes the claim that specialisation drives individuality, the latter conceived as the realisation of individuals’ unique creative potentialities. Indeed, for Kropotkin, the worker whose job has been highly specialised by the division of labour loses interest in his work, and subsequently his creative powers wane:

What can a weaver invent who merely supervises four looms, without knowing anything either about their complicated movements or how the machines grew to be what they are? What can a man invent who is condemned for life to bind together the ends of two threads with the greatest celerity, and knows nothing beyond making a knot? (Kropotkin, 1985: p. 171)

Ritter has argued that the goal of Kropotkin’s integrated labour can be understood as ‘communal individuality’. This points to the morphological interdependence of the components of individuality (understood as the full development of the self) and community (understood as reciprocal awareness) attached to Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity. The diversity spawned by the full development of each individual results in a mutual attraction and dependence between them and as a result reciprocal awareness and a sense of community is increased. Further, for Kropotkin, among the very characteristics of a fully realised individuality are more highly developed ‘social inclinations and instincts of solidarity’ (quoted in Ritter, 1980: p. 30). As such, the fully-developed individual is well disposed toward solidaristic social arrangements. As Ritter notes, the influence of Guyau upon Kropotkin’s thought here is clear (ibid.). Indeed, for Guyau, the end-point of human development is a situation whereby the individual will ‘no longer be able to enjoy himself alone; his pleasure will

96 be like a concert, in which the pleasure of others must form a part, by virtue of its being a necessary element’ (Guyau, 2012: p. 96). In the other direction, of course, community serves to reinforce individuality, since, according to Kropotkin, reciprocal awareness is a necessary constituent of a fully-developed self.

To provide the conditions in which a truly communal individuality might flourish, argues Ritter, Kropotkin relies upon the model of the agro-industrial commune, which, in ensuring that ‘all activities, but especially production’ are ‘carried out in small, internally unspecialized units’, serves to encourage ‘more intimate’ relations, lessens acute differentiation not only between manual and intellectual work, but also between individual trades and as a consequence constitutes an appropriate base for ‘solidaristic trust’ (Ritter, 1980: pp. 58-59). For Kropotkin, it is the free association between such units that provides the network for solidaristic relations and also serves to foster the development of individuality. In contrast to specialisation, it is variation, manifest in ‘ever changing, ever modified associations which carry in themselves the elements of their durability and constantly assume new forms which answer best to the multiple aspirations of all’, (Kropotkin, 2002: pp. 123-124), that allows for the individual to develop a unique self (Ritter, 1980: p. 59).

Let us return to Crowder’s critique of Kropotkin’s ‘mechanical’ conception of solidarity. A further point of criticism raised by Crowder refers to the traditional reliance of mechanical solidarity on ‘small-group identity’ (Crowder, 1991: p. 143). Whilst he acknowledges the resilience of the solidarity that is produced in the ‘small homogeneous community’, Crowder argues that the common interest of the collective ‘is defined in part by the terms in which they collectively set themselves apart’ (ibid.: pp. 143-144). The class solidarity of the proletariat, for instance, is reliant upon a quite stark contradistinction between the collective interest of the working class and that of the bourgeoisie. It follows that the vision of an anarchistic society in which the pre-existing divisions have fallen away cannot rely on the solidarity of a universal shared interest, since the inclusion of such a notion ‘robs mechanical solidarity of what … gives it its intensity and force’ (ibid.: p. 144). Crowder’s suggestion here is that the strength of solidarity we find in small homogeneous communities cannot be extended to society in general, since it is dependent upon a unifying characteristic which differentiates insiders from outsiders.

For Kropotkin, though, the origin of solidarity is to be found in the social instinct developed by human beings in the struggle for existence. Accordingly, the insider- outsider dichotomy is not a prerequisite for solidaristic relations. Rather, we are able to galvanise group solidarity on a universal scale by appealing to unity in the face of external threats to humanity as a whole. It is not other groups of fellow human beings against whom we should set ourselves apart; we can struggle instead against the common enemies of alienation, poverty and ecological degradation that pose both immediate and long-term threats to our well-being and survival.

Crowder’s critique is thus founded on a misreading of Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity. Whilst there are some similarities between Kropotkin’s concept and the mechanical type identified by Durkheim, to assert that Kropotkin conceptualises solidarity according to an explicitly mechanical model is to overplay the features they hold in common. Crowder’s supposition is essentially founded on the fact that Kropotkin’s concept emphasises the role of similarity over that of differentiation. This is a misconception: Kropotkin’s political prescriptions are not intended to encourage similarity or sameness. On the contrary, in advocating a varied education and integrated work for all, his purpose is not to make everyone a ‘jack of all trades’ in order to prevent a hierarchy of occupations and professions, but rather to ensure that all members of a community have ample opportunity to develop their own unique capacities and so contribute to the diversity and thus the cohesion of the whole. To further rebut Crowder’s analysis, it should be noted that in Durkheim’s scheme, mechanical solidarity coincides with a collective conscience that is highly religious and transcendental and with social norms that are reinforced through repressive sanctions manifest in the prevalence of penal law (Lukes, 1975: p. 158). These are all things which Kropotkin vehemently rejects. He explicitly insists that the development of a ‘greater effectual solidarity’ enables society to do away with systems of justice based on the principle of vengeance (Kropotkin, 1902: p. 10), and one of the central goals of his ethical project is to free human morality from the religious domain. Indeed, Crowder himself acknowledges that the religious aspect of mechanical solidarity and its reliance on punitive codes of justice represent ‘the very antithesis of the anarchist ideal’ (Crowder, 1991: p. 144). He subsequently suggests that Kropotkin might attempt to resolve this tension by turning to an organic conception of solidarity instead, but then goes on to identify the ways in which this

98 model, too, is incompatible with anarchist principles, since ‘According to Durkheim, organic solidarity is always found in conjunction with the State’ (ibid.: p. 145). Crowder’s use of Durkheim as an analytical framework is problematic because he ends up criticising Kropotkin for inconsistency in relation to a paradigm from which Kropotkin was actually attempting to distance himself. Indeed, it is not clear that Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity is either mechanical or organic, and it is surely unhelpful of Crowder to shoehorn his concept into this ill-fitting Durkheimian boot. In doing so, Crowder fails to properly acknowledge the central flaw in Durkheim’s mechanical-organic distinction, namely that specialisation leads to social solidarity. Specialisation under the division of labour may indeed produce a degree of interdependence between productive industries, but that does not necessarily equate to a general social solidarity. Indeed, Durkheim’s thesis actually ignores the fact that under capitalism the role of the bourgeoisie is essentially non-productive or intellectual work; they are thus dependent upon the working-class who fulfil their needs as consumers. The truer observation is that the capitalist division of labour leads inexorably to class conflict and individual alienation – a quite different picture to that of a mutually interdependent and solidaristic society of well-developed individuals. Naturally, Durkheim’s liberalism plays down the significance of class struggle, and he assumes that any conflicts of interest arising from the division of labour can be regulated by the state in order to preserve harmony. Of course, this notion is entirely at odds with anarchist principles, which hold that the state is in fact the guarantor of class oppression rather than a neutral arbiter.

Collective development and the social production of individuality Whilst it is impossible to ascertain the precise contribution of each of mutual aid and competition between individuals as factors of evolution, Kropotkin insists that observation of the natural world tells us that the fittest species – those which have the best chances of survival and have attained a higher level of development – are those that practice mutual aid. As such, although mutual aid and competition are both laws of nature, it is the former which is more important as a factor of evolution (ibid.: p. 5). In this sense then, mutual aid, as an expression of the feeling of solidarity, is chiefly responsible for the development of species.

Kropotkin holds solidarity, mutual support and common union as the decisive factors in both the survival and evolution of human beings. Indeed, in his account of pre- feudal ‘barbarian’ peoples, Kropotkin insists that, without the element of mutual aid enabled by the feeling of solidarity, societies would have become divided into partisan family groups and the level of development that was attained – in agriculture, technology, science, ethics and the arts – simply would not have been possible (ibid.: p. 124). Cooperation and mutual support are essential conditions of human progress; by contrast, social relations characterised by competition and egoism are not conducive to positive development. The more each member feels solidarity with his fellows, the more completely developed become the two qualities which drive progress: courage and free individual initiative. The more solidarity diminishes (often in circumstances of either exceptional scarcity or plenty), the more do these other two factors of progress, eventually leading to the decay of society (Kropotkin, 2002: p. 97). Further, claims Kropotkin, solidarity as manifest in institutions such as that of common ownership, which constitute manifestations of solidarity, contradict popular economic theories which assert that they are not compatible with progress, since in reality such institutions have often led to considerable advances (Kropotkin, 2006: p. 210). Kropotkin cites the example of the movement in Russia in the early nineteenth century and also in Poland, Greece, Bulgaria and Germany, back towards village community-style ownership, which became ‘the very means for introducing various improvements in agriculture and village life altogether’ (ibid.: p. 210-211). For Kropotkin, then, solidarity is no mere means of survival; it is the principal driving force of development in all areas of life. He identifies the key progression in the period of the ‘barbarians’ as the extension of solidarity to those outside of the village community, to those belonging to the wider ‘stem’ and further still to other confederated communities (ibid.: p. 124-125). A corollary of solidarity’s expansion, observes Kropotkin, is manifest in the modification that occurred in systems of justice, the emphases of which were shifted from crude revenge-based conceptions to more sophisticated models founded on notions of compensation. This development, the influence of which is still predominant in contemporary law, occurred alongside the growth of a ‘system of habits intended to prevent the oppression of the masses by the minorities whose powers grew in proportion to the growing facilities for private accumulation of wealth’ (ibid.: p. 125). This again testifies to the morphological interdependence of solidarity and equality in

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Kropotkin’s system of thought. The proximity of the concept of equality encourages a decontestation of solidarity through mutual aid which necessitates the prevention of the development of exploitative social relations.

A further example of the way in which the notion of collective development is addressed in Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity can be identified in his account of mutual aid in the medieval period. Following the imposition of feudalism, whereby village communities fell under the subjugation of military specialists (lords, to whom the mass of peasants became serfs), there was established, Kropotkin notes, a series of ‘free cities’ across Europe: ‘Wherever men had found, or expected to find, some protection behind their town walls, they instituted their “co-jurations” [sic.], their “fraternities”, their “friendships”, united in one common idea, and boldly marching towards a new life of mutual support and liberty’ (ibid.: p. 134). Kropotkin argues that during this period solidarity continued to provide the basis for development through mutual aid. Indeed, he goes as far as to insist that the geneses of all the major developments made in the first four centuries of the medieval period are to be found, not in ‘the genius of individual heroes’, nor in ‘the mighty organization of huge States or the political capacities of their rulers’, but, rather, in precisely the same traditions of mutual aid which characterised the life of the village community (ibid.: p. 134).

The fact that the individual-collective bond constitutes solidarity’s ineliminable feature raises questions not only as to the nature of social development, but also to that of the individual. How might Kropotkin’s theory of collective progress impact upon his account of individuality? Given that its microstructure is characterised by such emphasis on the social, cooperative aspect, how and in what form might Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity accommodate the notion of individual flourishing? Clearly, Kropotkin’s anarchism cannot harbour an egoistic, amoral conception like that promoted by Nietzsche and the individualist anarchists (see, for instance, Nietzsche, 1968; Stirner, 1995). Rather, his must be a notion of individuality that remains morphologically compatible with his insistence upon the factor of cooperation as the mainspring of progress.

Kropotkin’s notion of individuality is underpinned by his concept of freedom, which, like solidarity, constitutes a core concept within his ideological morphology. He makes a clear distinction between true freedom and the type propagated by the

101 individualist anarchists, whereby, Kropotkin claims, ‘minding one’s own business’ represents the only law to which one ought submit (Kropotkin, 2002: p. 173). Given Kropotkin’s emphasis on social interdependence, such an atomised view of individual freedom is clearly incompatible with his wider conceptual arrangement. For Kropotkin, true freedom requires not merely the negative notion of non-constraint, but the positive goal of human perfection, of ensuring conditions in which individuals are able to realise their full and unique potentialities. As George Crowder has noted, this account of freedom and individual development is clearly identified as a central principle in the first edition of Freedom, the anarchist journal of which Kropotkin was a founder:

The human freedom to which our eyes are raised is no negative abstraction of license for individual egoism … We dream of the positive freedom which is essentially one with social feeling; of free scope for the social impulses, now distorted and compressed by Property, and its guardian the Law … of free scope for the spontaneity and individuality of each human being (quoted in Crowder, 1991: p. 124)

This implies a high degree of morphological interdependence between freedom and solidarity; it is quite clear that according to Kropotkin’s anarchism neither freedom nor solidarity can flourish in the absence of the other. Whilst freedom enhances solidarity via the removal of constraints placed upon productive social relations by institutions of domination, in turn, solidarity underwrites freedom by providing a supportive context for its positive realisation in terms of individual development. Since solidarity complements freedom, it follows that, conversely, ‘the ideal of liberty of the individual’ is often ‘incorrectly understood’ in ‘surroundings where the notion of solidarity is insufficiently accentuated by institutions’ (Kropotkin, 2002: p. 143). It is within such social contexts that distorted notions of liberty take root, hence the prevalence of bourgeois conceptions of negative liberty in capitalist societies. Further, the robust network of solidaristic relations that results from the intercourse between Kropotkin’s concepts of freedom and solidarity constitutes a necessary condition for the development of individuality. It is only in a social setting characterised by freedom and solidarity that true individuality – the full realisation of each individual’s unique potential – can be achieved, since only in such an environment do the ‘infinite variety of capacities, temperaments and individual energies’ find their expression (ibid.: p. 123). Thus Kropotkin is able to circumvent

102 the individualist criticism that to assign precedence to society over the individual is in fact to shackle the development of individuality. Far from it, in Kropotkin’s scheme, it is the very solidarity of social relations which allows for the positive realisation of freedom and from which, owing to the endless diversity of humans’ capabilities, drives the development of individuality.

So, Kropotkin’s conception of individuality is borne of the collective, but how might it be prevented from degenerating into the egoistic licence that he deplores? Might not the individual, having fulfilled their unique potential, seek to exercise their faculties to selfish ends? In Kropotkin’s scheme, the social character of individuality is maintained by reason and is limited by ‘conscientious obedience to an objective moral law’ (Crowder, 1991: p. 124). In fact, for Kropotkin, a key element of the achievement of true individuality involves ‘personal independence for working out a new, better form of society, in which the welfare of all would become a groundwork for the fullest development of the personality’ (Kropotkin, 1993: p. 28). As such, the personal capabilities which are developed through social life are ones which serve to perpetuate sociability and which are consistent with egalitarian and solidaristic ends. Indeed, the greater the extent of an individual’s free development, insists Kropotkin, the more confident we can be that they will ‘behave and act always in a direction useful to society’ (Kropotkin, 2002: p. 102). Morphologically, of course, solidarity’s ineliminable feature simply cannot account for an egoistic notion of individuality. Such a conception would serve to disrupt the individual-collective bond, and is thus incompatible with it.

At a theoretical level, then, Kropotkin’s notion of individual development is shaped by the proximity of the two core concepts of freedom and solidarity. In practice, it is harmonised with the development of the collective and enabled by social relations characterised by mutual aid. This is particularly well illustrated, again, by the example of the guilds. The guilds were well suited, said Kropotkin, ‘to serve the need of union, without depriving the individual of his initiative’ (ibid.: p. 145). Indeed, through collective endeavour, the solidarity manifest in the guilds served not only to complement the liberty of the individual, but also to enhance the dynamism and creativity of each of its members. The example of the guilds is demonstrative of the arrangement of core concepts in the morphology of Kropotkin’s thought. It is the

103 interlinkage within the core of Kropotkin’s morphology of solidarity with the concept of liberty which allows for this particular notion of individual development to attach to solidarity’s ineliminable component. For the proximity of liberty ensures that Kropotkin’s notion of the individual is not subsumed by the collective; on the contrary, the individual is a product of social life. Indeed, Kropotkin argues that the scale of progress – in agriculture, industry and the arts, to name but three areas – achieved under the guild system was proof that social organisation based on both solidarity and liberty drives human development and creativity (ibid.: p. 162). For Kropotkin, the guilds provide fine examples of solidarity and liberty operating harmoniously; they represent ‘a close union for mutual aid and support, for consumption and production, and for social life altogether, without imposing upon men the fetters of the State, but giving full liberty of expression to the creative genius of each separate group of individuals’ (ibid.: p. 153). Importantly for Kropotkin, of course, the guild was not a collection of individuals placed under the control of the state or an external authority, but a free union of people connected by a common occupation. For according to Kropotkin it is the centralised state – not the solidarity of the collective – that stifles the energy and the creativity of the individual (ibid.: p. 162). From the moment of its inception, observes Kropotkin, the state ‘systematically weeded out all institutions in which the mutual-aid tendency had formerly found its expression’ (ibid.: p. 186). In other words, the state served to fundamentally undermine social solidarity, and in its absorption of all social functions it inevitably led to the development of individualism (ibid.: p. 187).

Kropotkin’s distinction between individualism and individuality requires some emphasis. Whilst the former connotes egoistic behaviour and social relations of a competitive or exploitative character, the latter refers to ‘the fullest development of the personality’ (Kropotkin, 1993: p. 28). Further, for Kropotkin, the two notions are fundamentally incompatible. Characterising contemporary society as suffering from a lack of individual initiative, Kropotkin argues that, ‘Economical individualism has not kept its promise: it did not result in any striking development of individuality’ (ibid.). In Kropotkin’s view, the capitalist system has failed to encourage this development because it has granted the individual freedom in only the economic sphere. (And, even then, it is a negative freedom available only to a propertied minority.) In other spheres – political, intellectual, artistic, and so on – individual rights lessened as

104 economic individualism and its corresponding state institutions were reinforced. Conversely, for Kropotkin, an economy that ensures the welfare of all serves to provide the very basis for the development of individuality. This again points to the morphological proximity to Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity of that of equality. The notion of individual development incorporated within Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity relies upon the preservation of certain conditions in which individuality can thrive.

Conclusion This analysis has shown that Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity comprises, in addition to the ineliminable component of the individual-collective bond, four other sub- conceptual idea-components: universal inclusion; community; common interest; and the social production of individuality. The internal morphology of Kropotkin’s concept is displayed in Figure 4:

Figure 4: Kropotkin's concept of solidarity

Social Universal production of inclusion individuality

Individual- collective bond

Common Community interest

I have demonstrated that Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity inevitably involves the ineliminable component of the individual-collective bond. For Kropotkin this central notion is fundamental, since in conceiving of our own existence as bound up with

105 that of the collective, we establish a basis for cooperation as an invaluable tool in the struggle for existence. In other words, the individual-collective bond is what allows for the development of mutual aid as a factor of evolution. (Importantly, in exploring the link between the terms ‘mutual aid’ and ‘solidarity’, I argued that Kropotkin employs them in such a way that mutual aid can be best understood as an empirical manifestation of his concept of solidarity.) Further, according to Kropotkin, the moment of self-identification with the collective is also that from which stem human moral conceptions. To identify oneself with the wider collective to which one belongs is to enable feelings of sympathy and subsequently benevolence which represent the starting point of ethical thinking. However, it is the additional idea-components that Kropotkin attaches to the ineliminable core that allow for such a decontestation of the individual-collective bond in the first place. Investigation of the microstructure of Kropotkin’s concept, and of its position in relation to other concepts within the morphology of his ideology is essential for a full understanding of what he means by ‘solidarity’. Accordingly, a morphological analysis has allowed us to ascertain the way in which various important categories of meaning are fulfilled.

We were able to deduce from Kropotkin’s notion of a necessarily widening circle of solidarity that his solidaristic ideal incorporated the notion of universal inclusion. The logical endpoint of an expanding circle of inclusion is one which embraces the entirety of humankind and is not limited to more narrow denominations based on race, class, nation or some other unifying characteristic. This was evidenced by Kropotkin’s association of ethical progress with the idea of overcoming the moral double standard which not only impedes the advancement of solidaristic relations but allows for the justification of wrongdoings to those seen as ‘other’. Kropotkin then went further, to argue that the expansion of solidarity is in fact a precondition for the survival of solidarity in itself. If the boundaries of solidarity become fixed, he argued, if they are not encouraged to explore new frontiers, solidaristic relations inevitably succumb to egoism and are swallowed up by their surroundings. The notion of the ever-expanding collective – culturally shaped by the influence on Kropotkin of Guyau – is one which we might seek to operationalise for the purpose of contemporary struggles against social ills. Indeed, a politics rooted in the idea of a pervasive circle of inclusion is one which is well-positioned to confront problems such as extreme poverty in the developing world, increasing economic inequality in the more affluent

106 nations, and racism, homophobia and gender discrimination more generally – not to mention the present Syrian refugee crisis.

The notion of community is important for Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity since it reinforces the feeling of common interest and facilitates social interaction, both of which are prerequisites for the flourishing of solidaristic relations. Indeed, it is societies in which regular social contact is prevalent that exhibit greater levels of solidarity, since the feelings of familiarity and of a shared identity is strengthened when we experience social life. Conversely, social bonds are weakest in atomised societies in which individuals do not experience the same level of interaction and as a result are less likely to develop reciprocal awareness. The key point here is that although the human capacity for solidarity has been gradually developed through a long period of evolution, the strength of its manifestation in real terms is dependent on environmental factors, namely upon a social arrangement which facilitates familiarity and reinforces the feeling of a shared identity amongst members of a collective.

The notion of common interest is lent morphological support through the proximity of Kropotkin’s concept of equality. Equality serves to anchor the idea-component of common interest to the ineliminable component since it serves to preserve the necessary conditions in which it can develop. The evolution of a shared identity and of a collective recognition of a common interest is dependent in part upon the maintenance of equality in all spheres of life, since it insures against the social stratification and partiality brought about by class divisions.

The final component incorporated in Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity is the social production of individuality. Kropotkin emphasises the importance of collective development, which refers to the part played by solidarity in human progress and the evolution of our social structures and ethical codes, ideas that Kropotkin elaborated at length in Mutual Aid and Ethics. The way in which Kropotkin addresses the notion of individual development is less straightforward, but is logically necessitated by his emphasis on that of the social body, which inevitably leads to questions about the place of the individual and individuality. As such, we observed the morphological importance of Kropotkin’s concept of freedom, the presence of which within the core of his ideology impacts significantly on his decontestation of individual development.

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For in advocating a positive conception of freedom, Kropotkin is able to negate negative, egoistic notions of individuality. His own conception of individuality thus incorporates the positive goal of human perfection, of ensuring the conditions in which each individual is best placed to realise their creative potentialities to the full. Of course, Kropotkin’s argument is that the best conditions for such development are characterised by social relations based on solidarity.

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5. Bookchin’s concept of solidarity

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar; I love not man the less, but nature more

Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (Byron, 1995: p. 243)

This chapter explores the concept of solidarity as found in the work of Murray Bookchin. Bookchin’s scholarly output is extensive, and his synthesis of anarchism and ecological thought that he labelled ‘social ecology’ is elaborated – and, indeed, has evolved – over a series of writings published between the time of his initial discovery of anarchism in the early 1960s and his gradual break from the ideology during the latter half of the 1990s (Biehl, 2007).

The legacy of Bookchin’s work has been the subject of much controversy, within both the anarchist and ecological movements. Indeed, appraisals of his contribution range in tone from earnest affirmation to near-vitriolic denunciation. The present study is not the place to discuss the whys and wherefores of Bookchin’s complex reputation; suffice to acknowledge that he was and is a polarising figure and to note also that much of the negative coverage has tended to focus on the individual rather than his work. Indeed, as Andy Price notes in Recovering Bookchin (his attempt to discount the Bookchin caricature), a significant portion of the critical literature ‘fails to deal with Bookchin’s philosophical and political positions’ and stems instead from his combative, argumentative style and perceived political ambitions, with the resulting critiques appearing ‘ad hominem, personal and unsubstantiated’ (Price, 2012: p. 25).

Nevertheless, many commentators have assessed Bookchin’s work in much kinder terms. David Goodway assures us that he should be considered the ‘foremost contemporary anarchist thinker’ (Goodway, 1989: p. 11) and, indeed, despite his jettisoning anarchism towards the end of his career and his advocacy of

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‘Communalism’ from that point until his death in 2006, Bookchin’s contribution to the contemporary anarchist canon over a period of several decades remains virtually unrivalled. In any case, the originality of Bookchin’s thought – he is described by Peter Marshall in his history of anarchism as ‘the thinker who has most renewed anarchist thought and action since the Second World War’ (Marshall, 1992: p. 602) – is such that his influence surely transcends the bounds of the anarchist tradition. In its insistence upon the eminent compatibility of traditional anarchist principles with ecological ideas, Bookchin’s thought has exerted a powerful and enduring influence well beyond the reaches of the anarchist movement and his ideas have helped to shape numerous contemporary green movements and a variety of forms of ecological thought, particularly in the United States. Notably, following an ideological realignment under Abdullah Öcalan, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party has, since the turn of the millennium, adopted a position influenced heavily by Bookchin’s theory of Communalism (Taylor, 2014). Further, Bookchin’s exploration of the conceptual convergence between the two ideological families of anarchism and ecologism left him convinced that, ‘an anarchist society, far from being a remote ideal, has become a precondition for the practice of ecological principles’ (Bookchin, 2004: p. 35). In short, Bookchin’s contention was that not only were anarchism and ecologism theoretically complementary; in terms of an effective and coherent programmatic politics they were inextricable.

The purpose here is to ascertain the place of solidarity in the conceptual morphology of Bookchin’s thought and to explore the way in which that concept is decontested. Although his 1982 opus, The Ecology of Freedom, is scattered with references to solidarity, at no point in that work does Bookchin proffer a direct conceptualisation or explicit definition as such. More often than not, the word ‘solidarity’ is deployed either as a descriptor for the outlook of ‘organic societies’ (preliterate and essentially egalitarian human communities that preceded the emergence of hierarchy and were characterised, Bookchin claims, by ‘their intense solidarity internally and with the natural world’ [Bookchin, 2005: p. 110]), or else as a form of social tie usurped or subverted, or rendered latent – but certainly not eradicated – by the onset of hierarchical relations.

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Nevertheless, despite the lack of an explicit definition, there is evidence enough in The Ecology of Freedom to support the notion that Bookchin does have a concept of solidarity, and that its place in the conceptual constellation of social ecology is a significant one. Indeed, exegesis of this seminal work, supplemented by analytical exploration of his other important writings on social ecology,14 makes it quite possible to discern the way in which a Bookchinian concept of solidarity is decontested. Accordingly, this chapter will argue that solidarity constitutes a core concept in Bookchin’s thought and that a particular decontestation of solidarity sits at the very heart of his social ecology thesis. In his insistence that the ecological crisis is social in origin, that our domination of nature has its roots in our domination of each other – a perspective which at the turn of the century made him, according to Andrew Light, ‘one of the most widely read ecological thinkers in the last thirty years’ (Light, 1998: p. 6) – Bookchin implies that a more harmonious relationship between humanity and nature necessitates an internal solidarity within human society. Solidarity is therefore a core concept within Bookchin’s ideology, since it constitutes a fundamental base for its political focus at the most general level and provides one of the basic principles from which its political objectives are derived. Indeed, the removal of solidarity from the conceptual map of Bookchin’s social ecology renders his ideology unrecognisable as such.

The chapter will go on to explore how Bookchin’s concept of solidarity is fleshed out, and will argue that there is a strong morphological link between the core concept of solidarity and Bookchin’s proposals for a rejuvenated notion of citizenship and radical direct democracy. Citizenship, I argue, constitutes an adjacent concept within the Bookchinian morphology, since by way of its relationship to solidarity it lends that core concept ‘greater logical precision and cultural shape’ (Hazareesingh, 1997: p. 46). As we shall see, the concept of citizenship is central to Bookchin’s proposals for ‘libertarian municipalism’. Libertarian municipalism is essentially the politics derived from the more general, philosophical position inhabited by social ecology. As such, its central prescriptions can be said to represent adjacent concepts, since they enable the application of the abstract core to a more concrete political world. This is certainly the case with Bookchin’s decontestation of citizenship, which, influenced

14 Bookchin takes the most significant of these to be The Rise of Urbanization and the Decline of Citizenship (1987), Remaking Society (1990a) and The Philosophy of Social Ecology (1996) (Bookchin, 2005: p. 18). 111 heavily by the Athenian notion of philia (translated by Bookchin as ‘solidarity’) he sees as an essential ingredient for the dissolution of hierarchy and the fostering of social solidarity internally, and subsequently in an ecological sense – between human society and the natural world. Further, the chapter will explore in more detail how Bookchin’s ideas for solidarity through citizenship are manifest in his more specific practical proposals for libertarian municipalism. In terms of ideological morphology, these proposals – for institutions such as the citizens’ assembly and the confederation – constitute peripheral concepts, since they enable Bookchin’s ideology to relate more specifically to the political world; they give concrete meaning to the abstract core concepts by providing practical policy initiatives and political objectives.

The ecology of solidarity At the core of the social ecology thesis sits a fundamental and somewhat controversial claim. It is expressed by Bookchin on the very first page of The Ecology of Freedom in the incisive formulation that ‘the very notion of the domination of nature by man15 stems from the very real domination of human by human’ (Bookchin, 2005: p. 65). Social ecology thus consists in an insistence upon the social origin of environmental degradation, upon the direct link between hierarchical human relations and the ecologically catastrophic dislocation of humanity from nature. This central supposition serves to set social ecology fundamentally apart from various other approaches to nature: (i) Marxism, which, as Bookchin sees it, holds humanity’s mastery of nature to be a necessary condition of freedom (Bookchin, 2005: p. 74); (ii) liberal, reformist environmentalism,16 the purpose of which, according to Bookchin, is merely to render the natural world ‘more serviceable for human use’ (ibid.: p. 85); and, (iii) the ‘biocentric’ assumptions of deep ecology that in terms of inherent worth value human beings as precisely and only equal to all

15 And Bookchin does mean ‘man’, tracing, as he does, the emergence of social hierarchy and the consequent domination of nature partly to the gradual shift away from ‘matricentrism’ (a term he borrows from Erich Fromm [Fromm, 1973]) in organic society towards increasingly patriarchal institutions (Bookchin, 2005: pp. 147-150). 16 In Bookchin’s terminology, there is a key distinction to be made between ‘environmentalism’ and ‘ecology’ or ‘ecologism’. The former denotes an ‘instrumental’ approach, which views nature merely as a store of ‘natural resources’ for human usage (thus its focus is on ameliorating, but essentially maintaining a dominatory, dislocated relationship); the latter, a notion of a humanity involved in nature as a part of an interdependent whole (Bookchin, 2005: pp. 85-86). 112 other organisms, and in characterising the ecological crisis simply as ‘man-made’ fail to identify the true social bases of the problem (ibid.: p. 55).17

From the assertion that the geneses of anti-ecological outcomes are embodied in the hierarchical nature of social life follows the qualification that ecological problems are in fact social problems as opposed to spiritual, governmental, technological or biological ones. And social problems, insists Bookchin, require (radical and genuinely) social solutions; they cannot be resolved through philosophical reorientation, technological innovation or bourgeois reformism. The first cause of ecological degradation is not human alienation from nature, but society’s inevitable tendency to project the logic of its own internal associations into the arena of its interaction with the natural world, thus reproducing a relationship with nature that is reflective of those within society itself. As such, if internal social relations are characterised by hierarchy and domination, the relationship between human society and nature is bound to reflect that. What is required, then, is an institutional reconfiguration according to a utopian, revolutionary politics which serves to transform the social dimension so as to free it from the hierarchical sensibilities, practices and institutions whose historical development have coincided with the advent of ‘civilisation’. Bookchin terms this stream of social history, the ‘legacy of domination’, and his project consists substantially in the rediscovery from its dialectical antithesis – the ‘legacy of freedom’ – the latent traditions and social patterns characteristic of a free and consequently ecological society (Bookchin, 2005: pp. 11-12). In this sense, Bookchin is to a certain extent following Kropotkin (although the ecological concerns are afforded greater emphasis) and, indeed, he explicitly acknowledges the fact that social ecology sits comfortably within the tradition of Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid (ibid.: p. 30). His idea of excavating and reinvigorating the ‘legacy of freedom’ is very similar to his predecessor’s notion that the traditions and habits of mutual aid and the instinct of solidarity remain intact in some small way no matter the extent to which society is dominated by political

17 Bookchin’s concerns about the potentially reactionary implications of some of the central assumptions of deep ecology are not necessarily without foundation. However, it has been suggested by Roy Krøvel that deep ecology and social ecology may not be entirely mutually contradictory, as is often assumed. Indeed, notes Krøvel, in the work of Arne Næss – deep ecology’s most influential thinker – there is nothing which ‘proscribes serious engagement with the real and important social issues raised by Bookchin, as later developments in deep ecology have demonstrated’ (Krøvel, 2013: p. 36). 113 authority (see, for example, Kropotkin, 2006: p. vii). Central to Bookchin’s project of recovery is the reconstitution of ‘a communion of humanity and nature that patently [expresses] the communion of humans with each other; a solidarity of the community with the world of life that [articulates] an intense solidarity within the community itself’ (Bookchin, 2005: p. 129). Thus the morphological centrality of solidarity to Bookchin’s project of social ecology is confirmed. In order for us to participate in and contribute to, rather than use, exploit or dominate – or, at the other extreme, revere, fetishise or defer to – the natural world, the humanity-nature relation must be fundamentally solidaristic in character. In turn, the realisation of solidarity between human beings and the biosphere depends entirely upon the constitution of solidaristic relations within human society itself.

Let us now consider the way in which Bookchin’s concept of solidarity is decontested. Thus far we have established its importance but are yet to gain an idea of what the concept actually looks like in terms of its ideational content. Perhaps the closest Bookchin comes to an explicit definition in The Ecology of Freedom is when discussing the ‘The Outlook of Organic Society’ in Chapter 2. In reviewing the work of anthropologist Dorothy Lee on Wintu Native Americans (Lee, 1959: p. 42), Bookchin argues that the lack of possessive verbs in Wintu language is reflective of an absence of ‘coercive and domineering values’ and of a prevalence of cooperative ones instead (Bookchin, 2005: p. 111). Rather than saying, ‘I have [a family member or possession]’, the Wintu say ‘I live with …’ implying, claims Bookchin, a ‘deep sense of mutual respect for person and a high regard for individual voluntarism’ and, moreover, a ‘profound sense of unity between the individual and the group’ (ibid.). Here then is a direct reference to the individual-collective bond that constitutes the ineliminable component found in all concepts of solidarity. This central feature is fleshed out with notions of mutual respect – manifest social relations of non- domination – and the firmly established virtue of mutual aid.

Bookchin observes of another Native American tribe – the Hopi – that their society was similarly ‘geared entirely toward group solidarity’ (ibid.). This solidarity entailed, Bookchin tells us, the cooperative undertaking of nearly all the basic tasks of the community, and the installation in all individuals of ‘a sense of responsibility for the community’ (ibid.). Cooperation and mutual aid, along with a deep feeling of

114 responsibility for others and for the collective generally are thus important factors in Bookchin’s ideal of solidarity. Further, ‘from this feeling of unity between the individual and the community,’ argues Bookchin, ‘emerges a feeling of unity between the community and its environment’ (ibid.: p. 112). Organic societies, Bookchin tells us, retain a conscious link to the natural world that involves a real sense of symbiosis, of ‘communal interdependence and cooperation’ with non-human nature. On these terms, the organic community is thought to be ‘part of the balance of nature’; it constitutes ‘a truly ecological community or ecocommunity peculiar to its ecosystem, with an active sense of participation in the overall environment and the cycle of nature’ (ibid.: p. 112). The solidarity practiced within human society is thus reproduced in humans’ dealings with their surroundings, and the collective consciousness of a humanity-nature symbiosis encourages and enables society’s ecological existence. Indeed, Bookchin suggests that the ‘human artfulness and natural fulfilment’ expressed by many artefacts of the Neolithic period support the notion that human solidarity in matricentric, horticultural societies was extended to the natural world, that so long as an ‘internal solidarity persisted, nature was its beneficiary’ (ibid.: p. 129).

Bookchin identifies a series of social practices and norms that characterise preliterate societies and that serve to reinforce the feeling of social solidarity (White, 2003: p. 38). The first is the practice of usufruct: ‘the freedom of individuals in a community to appropriate resources merely by virtue of the fact that they are using them’ (Bookchin, 2005: p. 116). Usufruct entails not merely communal proprietorship – the notion of property of any kind simply does not exist in organic societies. The emphasis is on function rather than possession: ‘need, in effect, still orchestrates work to the point where property of any kind, communal or otherwise, has yet to acquire independence from the claims of satisfaction’ (ibid.: p. 117). For Bookchin, the prevalence of usufruct over property is indicative of a similar predominance of ‘complementarity’ (‘the disinterested willingness to pool needed things and needed services’) over ‘interest’ (‘the rational satisfaction of egotism’) (ibid.). Objects are only valued according to their usefulness and, as such, are most valuable when they are in use. This notion of use-value dovetails with the principle of need as the basis for provision, since objects – whether they be food, building materials or hunting equipment – become available to all who have the need to use them. It is not difficult

115 to envision how such practices might produce ecological outcomes: by definition they preclude the stockpiling of ‘resources’, negate the acquisitive logic of consumerism, and render futile the principle of ‘ownership’ for its own sake. In short, they reject the modern identification of ‘limitless growth with “progress” and the “mastery of nature” with “civilization”’ (Bookchin, 1984: p. 49). In doing so, the need – or rather the tendency – for exploiting the natural world beyond its limits is greatly reduced, if not eradicated. The institution of usufruct is distinctly and explicitly anti-capitalist, and for Bookchin, it hints at one of many ways in which non- or anti-capitalist societies may enjoy a more productive and harmonious relationship with the natural world.

The second practice is embodied in the principle of the ‘irreducible minimum’, a label Bookchin borrows from the anthropologist Paul Radin, and which refers to ‘the inalienable right [of every individual in the community] to food, shelter and clothing’, ‘irrespective of the amount of work contributed by the individual to the acquisition of the means of life’ (Radin, 1960: p. 11, Bookchin, 2005: p. 123). The principle of the irreducible minimum was absolutely integral to the solidarity of the community, since it institutionalised society’s recognition of the value of each individual as a part of the collective. Indeed, Radin tells us, to deny a person those essentials of life – food, shelter and so on – was effectively to say that that person ‘no longer existed, that he was dead’ (Radin, 1960: p. 106). The irreducible minimum represented an act of acknowledgment on the part of society of the humanity and subjectivity of the individual; it served to cement the individual-collective bond fundamental to group solidarity. In Bookchin’s view, then, this principle was absolutely integral to the affirmation of solidarity in organic societies.

Further, as Bookchin sees it, the social practices captured by Radin in the notion of the irreducible minimum were symptomatic of organic society’s commitment to an ‘unarticulated principle of freedom’ (Bookchin, 2005: p. 218). This freedom is decontested in a positive sense, for implied within the notion of the irreducible minimum is an acknowledgement of and a compensation for natural inequalities in physical, intellectual and all other kinds of abilities. According to Bookchin, what we have here is a concept of ‘the equality of unequals’, decontested as ‘a freely given, unreflective form of social behaviour and distribution that compensates inequalities and does not yield to the fictive claim … that everyone is equal’ (ibid.: p. 219). The

116 equality of unequals represents the third social practice that bolsters solidarity in organic society. By contrast, an equality which sees all as equal in terms of ability is obviously misguided and, furthermore, ‘denies the commonality and solidarity of the community by subverting its responsibilities to compensate for differences between individuals’ (ibid.). In actuality, such a concept of equality – ‘the inequality of equals’, as Bookchin would have it – is often used to deal with people on very unequal terms: ‘the same burdens are imposed on very disparate individuals who have very different abilities to deal with them’ (Bookchin, 1990a: p. 98). This concept of pseudo-equality therefore serves to undermine social solidarity since it erases the notion of collective responsibility for the satisfaction of personal needs and, in its disregard and subsequent lack of compensation for individual differences, fails to affirm the freedom of the individual. Indeed, for Bookchin, to subscribe to such a concept is inevitably to harness difference to the production of hierarchy. To invert it, on the other hand, to encourage an egalitarian notion of difference of the kind Bookchin identifies in organic societies is to institutionalise interdependence and solidarity, to render individuals in a collective ‘members of a larger natural whole’ (ibid.: p. 49).

But the equality of unequals is not merely to do with ‘compensatory mechanisms’. Rather, it concerns a much more general attitude on the part of society and its members, or ‘an outlook that manifests itself in a sense of care, responsibility, and a decent concern for human and non-human beings’ (ibid.: p. 99). These are all practices Bookchin associates with a solidaristic society. More importantly, the principle of the equality of unequals ‘may rest on emotional determinants such as a sense of sympathy, community, and a tradition that evokes a sense of solidarity’ (ibid.). However, Bookchin argues, in organic societies, practices and codes such as the equality of unequals took the form of customs, which, by virtue of those communities’ characteristic parochialism, did not apply to non-members. In order for the bounds of solidarity to be widened and for its practices to be extended universally, says Bookchin, those customs must become ethics (ibid.). In other words, they must be exercised not merely as some distantly inherited communal habit, but rather be recognised as possessing an inherent moral character. The practitioners of solidarity in Bookchin’s utopia will not follow its codes merely by way of routine; they will actively seek to reinforce social solidarity because they know it is the right thing to do.

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The final defining characteristic of organic society, Bookchin tells us, is a commitment to an ‘ethics of complementarity’. For Bookchin, complementarity is integral to non-hierarchical social organisation; it is the antithesis of the command and obedience ethic that would be ushered in with the later emergence of civilisation. Indeed, the function of these ethics was to guard against precisely that: the development of dominatory social relations. Complementarity serves to oppose any claim of one member of a group to dominate another, and subsequently, given the central claim of Bookchin’s social ecology, ‘any claim that human beings have a “right” to dominate first nature’ (Bookchin, 2005: p. 40). Rather, says Bookchin, such an ethics emphasises the value of a diversity of life which contributes to a more genuine ‘wholeness’; it produces a solidarity of the whole through the heterogeneity and interdependence of its components (ibid.).

In Bookchin’s analysis, then, the systems of economic distribution prevalent in organic society were essentially organised according to the famous communistic principle, ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs’ – long before the maxim was popularised by Marx in the nineteenth century. In morphological terms, this particular decontestation of equality is, as Bookchin himself insists, ‘inextricably tied to freedom’ (Bookchin, 2005: p. 219). Indeed, says Bookchin, an authentic freedom necessarily entails the recognition of inequality and ‘transcends necessity by establishing a culture and distributive system based on compensation for the stigma of natural “privilege”’ (ibid.). On these terms, the development of civilisation would ultimately result in the subversion of freedom, as its expression in the principle of the equality of unequals gave way to notions of justice, which called for balance rather than compensation. For Bookchin, ‘justice’ therefore constitutes a manifestation of the ‘inequality of equals’ (ibid.: p. 224), since to assert that ‘everyone is equal before the law’, is to overlook the myriad natural differences and inequalities between individuals. Accordingly, the conception of justice whose development signalled the decline of organic societies and ushered in the era of civilization represents, in Bookchin’s view, a complete reversal of the genuine ‘freedom’ enabled by an equality of unequals.

Nevertheless, notes Bookchin, such a conception of justice does not necessarily consist in a complete negation of genuine freedom. Although it brought about the

118 subversion of the egalitarian practices of organic society, it also, he observes, prepared the ground for freedom ‘by removing the archaisms that linger[ed] on from the folk world of equality’ (ibid.: p. 225). For, despite its authenticity, in reality the conception of ‘primordial freedom’ supported by the solidaristic practices outlined above was one marked by an intense parochialism. The solidarity expressed in the practices and principles of usufruct, the irreducible minimum and the equality of unequals was not extended beyond the relatively local circle of the immediate community; it ‘made no real provisions for the rights of the stranger, the outsider, who was not linked by marriage or ritual to the kin group’ (ibid.). In short, in organic society, the subject of solidarity pertained to a relatively exclusive social circle, of which the criteria for inclusion were both particular and narrow. ‘The notion of a humanity in which all human beings are considered united by a common genesis’, Bookchin informs us, ‘was still largely alien’ (ibid.). Conversely, in its application of ‘the rule of equivalence’, in its insistence upon equality before the law, the new concept of justice very slowly began to break down the barriers erected by the parochial solidarities of primordial communities. This gradual process would culminate, Bookchin notes, in the granting of citizenship by Emperor Caracalla on the entire non-slave male population of the Roman Empire, an act which marked the first formal expression of the notion of a ‘universal humanitas’ (ibid.: p. 228). Despite suggestions that the principal aim of Caracalla’s Constitutio Antoniniana was not the extension of social inclusion, but rather that of the Empire’s tax base – not to mention the propagandistic opportunities spawned by the edict – (Southern, 2001: pp. 51-52) the move was historically unprecedented, and became the first juridical recognition of humankind’s common genesis. The ‘horizons of the human political community’, as Bookchin puts it, had been suddenly and vastly enlarged (Bookchin, 2005: p. 228). The break from parochialism had set in motion the long, gradual process of an extension of the circle of inclusion and ultimately given rise to the possibility of a universal human solidarity.

To summarise our findings thus far: Emerging from the analysis is an ideational trio at the core of Bookchin’s ideology, comprising the morphologically interdependent concepts of freedom, equality and, more importantly for our purposes, solidarity. These three concepts are interlinked in such a way that each serves to shape the content of the others. Freedom is decontested in a peculiar way: as an ability for the

119 positive realisation of potential that is enabled only by egalitarian means and as a product of collective unity. Equality is decontested as pertaining to a recognition of and compensation for natural differences and to a mode of provision geared to the satisfaction of needs. Solidarity is both a necessary condition and an inevitable product of these two neighbouring central concepts. Its interlinkage with equality is particularly important in terms of the decontestation of its own ideational anatomy. Bookchin’s needs-based concept of equality allows for a much richer notion of solidarity than one bound up merely with notions of shared interest and reciprocity (which ‘marks the first step toward exchange’ [ibid.: p. 117]). Indeed, according to Bookchin, reciprocity is far more likely to lead to the forming of ‘alliances between groups’, rather than the fostering of ‘internal solidarity within them’ (ibid.: p. 118). For Bookchin, then, solidarity connotes something altogether more fundamental than that which ensures merely that the constituent parts of the whole hang together harmoniously. In these circumstances, he tells us, cooperation is ‘more than just a cement between members of the group; it is an organic melding of identities that, without losing individual uniqueness, retains and fosters the unity of consociation’ (ibid.: p. 118). So the solidarity found in organic communities consists not merely in the social bonds between members or in some unifying characteristic afforded separate recognition by each and all. Rather, it finds its expression in the unique identity of the collective qua the collective; it is manifest in the very real subjectivity of the group itself. The implication here is that solidarity precedes individuality and, indeed, for Bookchin the solidarity of the collective is a precondition for the development of human uniqueness. Without the basis of a solidary collective identity, there is simply no prospect for the emergence of the individual. Equally, a solidarity which consists in the superficial bonds and alliances founded contractually on the basis of interest – in short, an agreement to consociation by individuals for their mutual benefit – is no solidarity at all. For Bookchin, therefore, the lack in organic societies of ‘an “I” with which to replace a “we”,’ points not to a deficiency in individuality, but instead to a richness of community (ibid.: p. 117). In ecological terms, this richness is invaluable, for it produces a relationship between human society and the non-human natural world that is characterised by symbiosis rather than domination. As such, to paraphrase Bookchin, as long as solidarity persists, nature is its beneficiary (ibid.: p. 129).

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The adjacency of citizenship For Bookchin, the notion of a universal humanity remains devoid of any real meaning unless it is given ‘existential reality by self-assertive personalities who enjoy a visible degree of autonomy’ (ibid.: pp. 228-229). Put differently, individuality represents a necessary morphological companion to the development of a more inclusive solidarity. The decline of organic society and the rise of civilisation had inevitably resulted in the decline of primordial parochial solidarities. For Bookchin this gave rise to a need for the development of new social patterns that would allow for the individual to function in an ‘increasingly atomised’ social world (ibid.: p. 229). In the absence of the intense sense of collectivity that had characterised organic society, says Bookchin, this was achieved through the development of a ‘resourceful, comparatively self-sufficient, and self-reliant ego that could readily adapt itself to … a society that was losing its human scale and developing more complex political institutions and commercial ties’ (ibid.). On Bookchin’s reading, classical antiquity was marked by an unprecedented level of development in the social, economic and political spheres that rendered previous modes of association simply unworkable. Whilst the shift from intense, parochial solidarities to more outward-looking, self- assertive individuals was not a direct corollary of these developments – indeed, the evolution of the two phenomena necessarily coincided – it is a truism that social networks based solely on kinship, marriage and tribal ties simply were not compatible with emerging modes of technology, distribution and association. As such, says Bookchin, the increasingly sophisticated political realm – and indeed society generally – witnessed a steady transformation of the notion of individuality. Indeed, the rise of civilisation signaled the departure of the parochial forms of group solidarity that had characterised organic society, and impelled the development of ‘autonomous egos … free to undertake the varied functions of citizenship’ (ibid.: p. 231).

However, this was no unfettered individuality (or, more properly, individualism) like that promulgated by the bourgeois classes of European modernity. Quite to the contrary, it was a conception of individuality whose development took place on an explicitly social level, whose purpose was not to divorce the individual from the collective, but rather to reinforce that essential link in the context of a changing social setting. This was the rise of the autonomous individual-as-citizen and the

121 crystallisation of all the notions of collective responsibility and civic engagement implied therein. Its function, initially, at least, was not to produce a disconnected assortment of monadic, amoral and asocial egoists, but to aid individual participation in the political collective – in a word, citizenship – which reinforced the solidarity of the collective.

In Bookchin’s ideology, citizenship lends morphological support to solidarity; it constitutes a means by which social solidarity is created, nurtured and preserved. The relationship of citizenship to solidarity within the conceptual structure of Bookchin’s thought is significant, and analysis of this relationship is crucial to understanding solidarity as a core concept. The adjacency of citizenship – decontested as the exercise of civic virtue via active political participation – also renders solidarity fundamental to the realisation of freedom, for ‘No ecological ethics of freedom’, insists Bookchin, ‘can be divorced from a politics of participation, a politics that fosters self-empowerment rather than state empowerment’ (Bookchin, 1996: p. 93). In short, a participatory politics is essential for the genuine expression of collective freedom, the peculiar decontestation of which is inextricably bound up with notions of group solidarity. Morphologically, though, it is arguable that citizenship is more closely linked to Bookchin’s concept of solidarity than his concept of freedom, although it enables the latter. For it is the very disconnectedness brought about by the domination of the social and political spheres by the institutions of contemporary capitalism that is the root cause of the minimisation of individuals’ control over their own lives. It is the diminution of social solidarity engendered by the hierarchical relations inherent to capitalism and the state that represents the root cause of a lack of freedom in the first instance.

The erosion of solidarity is manifest partly in civic estrangement, in a ‘Decline of Citizenship’, as Bookchin puts it in the title of his 1987 work.18 Indeed, he argues, we are no longer ‘citizens’ in any meaningful sense, or at least not according to the

18 The Rise of Urbanization and the Decline of Citizenship (1987) was later reworked and retitled by Bookchin as From Urbanization to Cities (1995a). The latter work was symptomatic of a significant shift in Bookchin’s writings from the ‘ecotopian’ to the ‘strategic and programmatic’. Indeed, as Damian White has observed, ‘Many of the ecological components of the text [were] in large part taken out’ (White, 2008: p. 155). Mindful of the need to capture as consistent and coherent a Bookchinian morphology as possible, this analysis shall focus on the initial manifestation of the work, which sits much more comfortably with Bookchin’s earlier writings on social ecology, and which is more firmly rooted in the anarchist tradition than the later book. 122 original meaning of the word, whose etymology is rooted in the Latin civitas, meaning a social body united by a series of rights and responsibilities. The modern notion of citizenship has recognisably denatured from this ancient ideal so that we have become instead ‘the electorate’, ‘taxpayers’ and ‘constituents’ – terms which clearly reflect our separation from the public sphere and the body politic (Bookchin, 1987: p. 11). Further, this decline of citizenship is the result of the ‘Rise of Urbanization’, whereby city life – initially characterised by a thriving civic culture – has been absorbed by ‘smothering traits of anonymity, homogenization and institutional gigantism’ (ibid.: p. 3). The antidote, insists Bookchin, is to redefine and reshape ‘the citizen’ as an active agent in a political community, to reclaim ‘politics’ from the discipline of ‘statecraft’, and to reinvigorate the public sphere (‘the city’) as an ‘ethical union, a humanly scaled form of personal empowerment, a participatory, even ecological system of decision making, and a distinctive source of civic culture’ (ibid.: pp. 57, 54). As White has put it, Bookchin’s scheme necessitates a retrieval and reevaluation of the ‘classic conceptions of politics, citizenship and the city’ (White, 2007: p. 183). These conceptions have been manifest with varying degrees of durability in fleeting moments throughout history, but the most sustained and authentic exercise in participatory democracy and civic virtue was of course embodied in the Athenian polis (Bookchin, 1987: p. 35). On that topic, Bookchin draws attention to the common mistranslation of polis as ‘city-state’, or even simply ‘state’. In fact, he insists, the high point of Athenian democracy was marked by the very absence of a ‘professionalised bureaucracy of social control’ – as he sees it, the defining characteristic of states proper from the sixteenth century onwards (ibid.: p. 33). Bookchin is insistent that, despite the fact that the citizenry of ancient Athens represented an elite minority in comparison to the population of women, slaves, artisans and manual labourers and disenfranchised resident aliens, the system of governance was distinctly and ‘consciously amateur’ (ibid.: p. 35). In other words, the polis resembled the very antithesis of a state as such; its administration was entirely reliant upon the direct participation of citizens.

The significance of this in relation to Bookchin’s concept of solidarity lies in Bookchin’s reading of Aristotle, the eminent theorist of the Hellenic polis. For Aristotle, Bookchin tells us, our self-fulfillment as political animals is dependent on the existence of institutions substantiated by a ‘body of ethics’ and a ‘civic centre’

123 offering a plethora of ‘social activities’ that serve to ‘nourish interactions and discourse’ and ‘foster the growth of ethical and intellectual insight’ (ibid.: p. 37). Crucially, Aristotle’s necessary means for human self-fulfillment are, Bookchin tells us, grounded in a notion of ‘human solidarity or philia’ (ibid.). Ordinarily translated as ‘friendship’, Bookchin insists that philia is in fact a much more far-reaching notion that ‘implies an expansive degree of sociality that is a civic attribute of the polis and the political life involved in its administration’ (ibid.: p. 38). In Bookchin’s account, philia transcends that which pertains merely to the immediate and intimate associations implied by ‘friendship’. This is demonstrated, he tells us, in Aristotle’s distinction between home life and public life. While the private household is a ‘sphere of mere survival’ to which the political animal retreats in order to satisfy purely material and physiological needs, the polis, as evolved from ethical and cultural communities more generally, represents a political expression of human beings’ need for consociation and quest for the good life (ibid.: p. 38-39). Put another way, genuine fulfilment necessitates social interaction beyond parochial circles of solidarity. That the workings of the polis were necessarily underpinned by philia is thus reflective of the latter’s generality, since the term patently refers to a much broader range of associations than those that are played out in our immediate social circle. Indeed, the prevalence of philia suggests an extension of solidarity by members of a collective to those with whom they have no immediate relationship. As Bookchin puts it, ‘Aristotle’s notion of philia or solidarity as a crucial precondition for a political life expressed the unique identity politics possessed as a form of governance, one that transcended mere kinship obligations’ (ibid.: p. 52). Further, the pervasive nature of association implied by Aristotle’s concept serves to enrich the idea of citizenship. As John Clark has noted, the civic commitment implied by philia imbues the notion of the citizen with ‘a sense of ethical responsibility toward one’s neighbours, and an identification with a larger whole: the political community’ (Clark, 1998: p. 145). As such, philia represents a meaningful and genuine social relation – manifest in ‘civic ties’ and ‘ethical precepts’ as opposed to ‘blood ties’ or ‘tribal custom’ (Bookchin, 1987: p. 52-53) – that embodies an individual-collective bond. It is for this reason that Bookchin prefers to characterise it as solidarity.

Whilst the direct-democratic tradition has flowered in sporadic bursts since the time of the Athenian polis – notably in the medieval city-states and the town meetings and

124 sectional assemblies that arose briefly during the American and French revolutions respectively (ibid.: p. 83) – it was ultimately usurped by the centralising and representative tendencies of republican Rome. However, for Bookchin, the legacy bequeathed to modernity by the Hellenic experiment is considerable and both the Athenian ideal of citizenship and conception of politics demand close inspection if we are to wrest back the activity of politics from professional bureaucrats and reinstate ourselves as political agents, as active, empowered citizens within a thriving public sphere (ibid.).

Central to Bookchin’s project, then, are the tasks of disentangling the social from the political and the political from the state, for we have ‘created a terrible muddle by confusing the three and thereby legitimating one by mingling it with the other’ (ibid.: pp. 226-227). According to Bookchin, the political is not synonymous with the social. Rather, politics emerge when the activities involved in human beings’ communal intercourse become organised into institutions and made ‘operationally systematic’ (ibid.: p. 226). Politics is thus a distinctly human activity, since other social animals do not have institutions, have not developed ‘consciously formed ways of ordering their communities that are continually subject to historical change’ (ibid.). Equally, for Bookchin, statecraft – a relatively recent development – has ‘no authentic basis in community life’, and as such, ‘by assigning political functions and prerogatives to “politicians”’, ‘we have lost our sense of what it means to be political’ (ibid.: pp. 226, 227). By contrast, a genuine politics must be rooted in the social; it inevitably emerges from human beings’ propensity to communise and becomes manifest in organisational forms and processes that serve to enhance the social dimension. Accordingly, the modern concept of politics is a deception, since statecraft does not represent a politics that is rooted in the social sphere. Politics has degenerated from a face-to-face, participatory activity involving the entire community to something done by an elite of professional administrators and bureaucrats. As a consequence, argues Bookchin, ‘we have lost our sense of what it means to be a citizen’ (ibid.: p. 227).

In order to reclaim citizenship, says Bookchin, we must pursue a programme of decentralisation that ‘links the re-empowerment of the community with the re- empowerment of the individual’ (ibid.: p. 228). Bookchin’s goal is a ‘municipal

125 freedom’, which results from the relocation of political activity from the centralised state to the city as a public sphere and centre of civic engagement. This represents ‘the basis for political freedom’, which, in turn, is ‘the basis for individual freedom’ (ibid.). For the unrelenting march of urbanisation, the dismantling of previous ‘institutional, ethical and personal ideals’ and the shift towards ‘acquisitive individualism’ were, of course, coincident with and accelerated by the development of industrial capitalism (ibid.: pp. 241, 242). The new individualism, having mushroomed since the end of the Second World War, says Bookchin, now ‘constitutes a social malignancy, more properly a cancer of society that threatens to destructure and undermine not only the social bond but the natural world’ (ibid.: p. 242). By ‘unravelling … all social ties into the loose threads of the marketplace’, by objectifying values, monetising ideals and prioritising a form of economic ‘growth’ that inevitably results in the commodification of nature, it has the effect of ‘ossifying community and individual alike’ (ibid.). In short, an individualism founded on acquisition – in essence, a bourgeois individualism – inevitably results in a diminution of social solidarity which in turn stunts the development of a genuine individuality and threatens the ecological balance of the biosphere. But whilst politics and citizenship are undoubtedly victims of the corrosive processes engendered by acquisitive individualism, Bookchin offers the hope that ‘they are also the antidote … provided, to be sure, that we can reconstruct them in ways that are redolent of their classical meaning and enlarged by what we can learn from the modern world’ (ibid.).

The concept of citizenship is thus an important adjacent concept in the morphology of Bookchin’s thought. Decontested as the exercise of civic virtue, Bookchin’s notion of citizenship seeks to nurture an inclusive, participatory politics that marks a sharp departure from the representative models that have dominated modern conceptions of the political. For Bookchin, a genuine politics is an ‘organic phenomenon’ which consists in ‘the activity of a public body – a community’ (ibid.: p. 243). According to this view, politics is a vital site of rational public discourse which constitutes ‘the sphere of societal life beyond the family and the personal needs of the individual that still retains the intimacy, involvement and sense of responsibility that is enjoyed in private arenas’ (ibid.: p. 244). Politics is necessarily a community activity, the realisation of which is dependent on the development of an active, stimulated and empowered citizenry. The necessary conditions of public engagement and the

126 extension of responsibility entailed by politics and citizenship shape those concepts in such a way that their morphological link to solidarity is crucial for the decontestation of the latter and the structural integrity of Bookchin’s ideology more generally. Citizenship as the exercise of civic virtue via a participatory politics serves simultaneously as a manifestation of social solidarity and as a scaffolding which lends that solidarity structural support. The cause-effect relation between the two is not a one-way street, but a veritable dual-carriageway of morphological interlinkage. For Bookchin, therefore, a revitalised notion of citizenship must take its place on the front line in the battle against the individualistic tendencies fostered by urbanisation, homogenisation and marketisation – in short, capitalism – and, as such, its role in remaking a society based on solidarity is integral.

The notion of citizenship as a workable basis for solidarity is not difficult to grasp. Indeed, the idea that a reinvigorated and empowered (and/or empowering) local politics can foster group unity and cooperation is a very straightforward one. However, the task of reclaiming politics from statecraft and revitalising and re- engaging a genuine and participatory citizenry from the mass of monadic individuals presided over by late capitalism is altogether more problematic. Indeed, the question remains: how are we to free ourselves and our politics from the auspices of the market and centralised authority so as to avert both social and ecological degradation? Bookchin’s proposed programme is that which he terms ‘libertarian municipalism’, the stated goal of which involves the redefinition of ‘politics’ according to the word’s classical meaning, interpreted as ‘the management of the community or polis by means of direct face-to-face assemblies of the people in the formulation of public policy and based on an ethics of complementarity and solidarity’ (Bookchin, 1991: p. 4).

According to Bookchin’s political vision, the municipality – an ‘association of people reinforced by its own economic power, its own institutionalisation of the grass roots, and the confederal support of nearby communities organized into a territorial network on a local and regional scale’ (Bookchin, 1987: p. 245) – constitutes the fundamental unit and arena of authentic political activity. His proposal is for a radical dissolution of hierarchical relations through the removal and relocation of politics from the national state to the municipality. Bookchin accepts that ‘cast in strictly structural and

127 administrative forms’ a project of decentralisation on this scale amounts to a formidable problem, since many contemporary urban conurbations simply and literally have no way of ‘assembling’ if they attempt to emulate Athens, the citizenry of which was relatively small (ibid.: p. 246). It is logistically impossible for all of the citizens of London or New York or Beijing, for instance, to physically assemble in one place. But Bookchin’s notion of ‘the city’ does not equate to the megalopolises that dominate contemporary urban space. Indeed, what is required, says Bookchin is a shift from urbanisation – a socially moribund, anti-ecological phenomenon – to citification – a reconstitution of cities as centres of civic engagement and social exchange. Further, as Bookchin reminds us, even the most vast of today’s urban conurbations are themselves made up of neighbourhoods – ‘organic communities that have a certain measure of identity’ – which actually render large cities quite amenable to political decentralisation. Political decentralisation is the foremost principle of libertarian municipalism and, claims Bookchin, ‘No city … is so large that it cannot be networked by popular assemblies for political purposes’ (ibid.: p. 247). For, although the administration of municipal projects would likely require expert coordination (architects and engineers to design and construct buildings and infrastructure; doctors and nurses to provide healthcare; farmers and agricultural specialists to manage cultivation and food production, et cetera), the politics of the municipality – i.e. the processes of decision making – are, according to Bookchin, eminently open to participation by non-experts. The formulation of public policy is an entirely different thing from its execution, so that while the latter activity will inevitably require specialist expertise, the former is one in which amateurism is as desirable as it is feasible. Bookchin’s vision is not for a politics of politicians, but for a politics of citizens acting in solidarity as responsible members of a community.

However, insists Bookchin, libertarian municipalism is absolutely not a politics of the referendum. Under such a model, he argues, the individual in his or her capacity as a voter ‘becomes a seemingly asocial being whose very freedom is denuded of vital traits that provide the necessary flesh and blood for genuine individuality’ (ibid.: p. 248). The referendum represents, for Bookchin, the privatisation, quantification and consequently the subversion of democracy. In reducing ‘views into mere preferences’, ‘ideals into mere taste’, and ‘overall comprehension into quantification’, the system does not allow for the full expression of our political wills and convictions

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(ibid.: p. 250). In short, referendum politics do not encourage a genuine or meaningful form of citizenship. Quite to the contrary, for Bookchin, the so-called ‘autonomous individual’, ‘left to his or her own destiny in the name of … independence’ – in other words, in the capacity of ‘voter’ implied by a referendum- based politics – is actually divested of genuine individuality (ibid.: p. 248). Bookchin explicitly supports Max Horkheimer’s assertion that the individual in absolute isolation is an illusory notion, and that, in fact, ‘The most esteemed personal qualities, such as independence, will to freedom, sympathy, and the sense of justice, are social as well as individual virtues’ (quoted in Bookchin, 1987: p. 248). Indeed, Horkheimer was insistent that a genuine individuality can only be realised by social means. Accordingly, he argued that ‘The fully developed individual is the consummation of a fully developed society’ (Horkheimer, 2013: p. 96).

With this in mind, Bookchin proffers the observation that, according to the processes involved in referenda politics, the individual does not maintain his or her basis in the community, and is therefore unable to properly develop their individuality. In conducting their politics in the privacy of the voting booth, the individual becomes separated from society rather than a part of it. Further, says Bookchin, the so-called ‘independence’ afforded the individual by this form of politics is often ‘confused with independent thinking and autonomy of behaviour’, and ‘has been so marbled by pure bourgeois egoism that we tend to forget that our freedom as individuals depends heavily on community support systems and solidarity’ (Bookchin, 1987: p. 249). Thus there is a clearly identifiable morphological link between solidarity and individual freedom, whereby the former allows for the flourishing of the latter. Indeed, for Bookchin, this is what marks us out as social beings: we do not subordinate ourselves to the community, but neither do we detach ourselves from it. Rather, we achieve an authentic humanity through ‘our capacities for solidarity with each other, for mutually enhancing our self-development and creativity and attaining freedom within a socially creative and institutionally rich collectivity’ (ibid.: p. 249). Accordingly, when citizenship is divorced from the community we become dependent and as such we achieve neither individuality nor community in any real sense. ‘Both … are dissolved by removing the communal ground on which authentic individuality depends’ (ibid.) – the erosion of solidarity is in effect the erosion of the soil in which the germ of individuality takes root. To reiterate: ‘it is interdependence within an

129 institutionally rich and rounded community that fleshes out the individual with the rationality, solidarity, sense of justice, and, ultimately, the reality of freedom that makes for a creative and caring citizen’ (ibid.). So, in the morphology of Bookchin’s thought, not only does individuality depend on solidarity, solidarity in turn requires a network of relations and institutions that provide the intimacy and interaction without which it suffocates.

Herein lies the programmatic centrality of the municipality. For Bookchin, that the municipality constitutes the fundamental unit of political life, that it provides the arena in which citizens engage in intimate and genuinely political discourse, makes it a physical, necessary condition for solidarity. Indeed, it enables the very activity of ‘communizing, of the on-going intercourse of many levels of life that makes for solidarity, not only the “neighbourliness”, so indispensable for truly organic interpersonal relationships’ (ibid.: p. 250). As such, collective decision-making must amount to much more than merely registering one’s preferences via a ballot; it necessarily involves a face-to-face experience, a productive dialogue. Further, the communal setting of the municipality encourages the Athenian notion of personal development or education (paideia) that helps shape individuals as citizens. For according to Bookchin, ‘True citizenship and politics entail the on-going formulation of personality, education, a growing sense of public responsibility and commitment that render communing and an active body politic meaningful’ (ibid.). Paideia, Bookchin tells us, is an important bulwark for solidarity, since it encourages a sense of communal loyalty through a political education rooted in participation. This is a quite different thing to ‘institutional obedience’ or patriotism, which implies a ‘mindless, indeed, infantile relationship to the state’ (ibid.). Indeed, Bookchin explicitly states that ‘solidarity is the ultimate result of the educational and self- formative process that paideia was meant to achieve’ (ibid.: p. 251). This is something which, for Bookchin, is painfully absent from modern conceptions of politics, whereby political education does not even enter into public discourse, and engagement and participation are gauged according to turnout at elections and membership of parliamentary political parties. Bookchin’s proposed solution to the crisis of citizenship and the subsequent lack of solidarity is a ‘new municipal agenda’ designed to facilitate the reclamation and rejuvenation of the political sphere.

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Solidarity at the periphery: Bookchin’s ‘New Municipal Agenda’ Bookchin’s outline of a ‘new municipal agenda’ constitutes a broadly sketched programmatic strategy for the revitalisation of citizenship and politics. This outline is significant to the central meanings carried by Bookchin’s ideological morphology and marks the point at which Bookchin’s concepts of solidarity and citizenship (or, more accurately, solidarity through citizenship) begin to lose their abstraction and become translated into concrete proposals for political action. As such, they can be said to be peripheral concepts, as they enable an application of broader conceptual ideals within a specified spatial and temporal context.

Despite his utopian vision for libertarian municipalism, Bookchin is quick to point out that he does not profess to have devised a comprehensive template for a future society. To do so, he claims, would be to ‘subvert the very meaning of the libertarian municipal project it seeks to advance’, since ‘Utopias have a bad way of becoming fixed blueprints – after which they degenerate into inflexible dogmas’ (ibid.: pp. 252, 268). Equally, Bookchin does not claim to possess all of the solutions to all of the problems with which a municipal model might be confronted. Rather, he sees his agenda as comprising ‘certain basic coordinates’ that apply to any conception of municipal freedom and any notion of a solidarity achieved through a participatory politics and active citizenship (ibid.: p. 257). Here, we explore the way in which these peripheral notions are morphologically interconnected with and help to mould Bookchin’s concept of solidarity.

The most important of Bookchin’s ‘coordinates’ is the revival of the ‘citizens’ assembly’. Assemblies may be instituted on the basis of town meetings or, in the case of larger metropolitan areas, individual neighbourhoods, the priority being to maintain a ‘human scale’ that facilitates not only a participatory mode of politics, but a ‘personalistic’ one which necessarily entails a face-to-face intercourse (ibid.). Bookchin’s notion of citizenship as a support for social solidarity thus depends partly on familiarity and social exchange. Central to the citizens’ assembly model is a notion of citizenship which involves a direct and intimate mode of political activity that nourishes solidaristic relations. The acts of engaging with fellow citizens on a regular basis, of directly challenging each other’s assumptions and of contributing to the fecundity of public discourse and the political expression of the collective serve to

131 reinforce the sense of interdependence and the strength of unity between individual citizens and the wider group.

The second of Bookchin’s coordinates refers to the necessary confederation of municipal assemblies and the need for communication between them (ibid.). He outlines the structural arrangement of the confederation as resembling ‘a network of administrative councils whose members or delegates are elected from popular face- to-face democratic assemblies, in the various villages, towns, and even neighbourhoods of large cities’ (Bookchin, 1990b: p. 8). These ‘strictly mandated delegates’ – as opposed to ‘representatives’ – that execute the administrative processes at the confederal level must be ‘rotatable, recallable, and above all rigorously instructed in written form to support or oppose any issue that appears on the agenda of local confederal councils composed of delegates from several neighbourhood assemblies’ (Bookchin, 1987: p. 246). The overarching purpose of confederation is to preserve harmony between local assemblies and to prevent the development of parochialism within individual communities. However, John Clark sees the confederal aspect of Bookchin’s project as problematic and argues that there is an inherent contradiction between Bookchin’s ‘desire for universalism’ and his ‘commitment to particularism’, between the notion of a general solidarity on the one hand and the sovereignty and distinctiveness of the municipality on the other (Clark, 1998: p. 148). Bookchin’s claim is that the municipal assembly must serve exclusively as the policy-making body and that the confederation exists solely for the purposes of administration, to implement the policy decisions taken at the municipal level. This way, runs the argument, the intimacy of the assembly encourages authentic political participation, while the confederation guards against the degeneration of decentralisation into parochialism. Solidarity is fostered locally (in the municipality), and exercised and protected further afield (in the confederation and beyond). For Clark, however, it is not clear how this division of functions – between municipal decision making and confederal administration – is to operate in the event of disagreement within or between assemblies on matters of policy (ibid.: pp. 176- 177). Put another way, if there are policy disagreements at the municipal level then the implementation of policy at the confederal level is complicated. This certainly represents a significant difficulty in Bookchin’s vision for libertarian municipalism. Given the extent of social, cultural and economic diversity concentrated within

132 relatively small metropolitan areas, the tension between a universal ethic and a local politics could amount to a major operational obstacle. When large populated areas are divided into smaller communities that may often have quite distinct identities based on cultural heritage, social values, economic interests and so on, conflicts of interest between one locality and the next would appear inevitable. Bookchin offers little explanation of how such an eventuality might be avoided or resolved, at least not beyond the rather vague notion of municipalities’ inevitable economic interdependence created by the need to share resources and produce (Bookchin, 1990b: p. 9). In his defence, Bookchin does not claim to offer a vision for a society free of all social conflict and, indeed, he is not required to do so. Bookchin does not equate solidarity to social harmony; he is merely suggesting that processes of conflict resolution should be executed by citizens directly rather than by a centralised bureaucracy.

Nevertheless, as Clark illustrates, the logistical problems involved in executing a municipal project of the type Bookchin advocates are potentially enormous. Taking into account that metropolitan Paris, for example, has a population of roughly 8.5 million, Clark estimates that the devolution of that city’s government into neighbourhood assemblies of roughly 25,000 people would mean that 340 assemblies would be needed to cover the metropolitan area. Further decentralisation into ‘much more democratic assemblies for areas of a few blocks, with about a thousand citizens each’ would result in 8,500 Parisian assemblies (Clark, 1998: p. 178). Given the proliferation of municipalities that would be necessary for a genuinely direct democratic system to operate, for Clark it is simply inconceivable that policy administration would remain effective at the confederal level without some concession of political authority by the municipalities. As such, while Clark accepts that attempts to restructure society according to the local assembly model should be considered an important aspect of a ‘left green, social ecological, or ecocommunitarian politics’, he urges us to consider that such a programme is unlikely to become the default method of political process in a future society (ibid.: pp. 181-182). Importantly, however, Price has pointed out that the tension found in Bookchin’s politics ‘between the particular and the general’ – in other words, between local civic participation and widely inclusive notions of solidarity – has actually been embraced as a positive by the theorists and practical experiments

133 associated with the contemporary alter-globalisation movement (Price, 2012: p. 256). Indeed, Price argues, the now familiar appeal promoted by the movement to ‘think globally, act locally’, represents a particularly tangible example of the dissolution of this apparent contradiction. This points to the possibility that both practically and conceptually, a global sensibility and a universally inclusive notion of solidarity need not conflict with a politics founded on localism, decentralisation and participatory democracy.

The third of Bookchin’s basic coordinates for libertarian municipalism is the need for the political sphere to serve as ‘a school for genuine citizenship’ (Bookchin, 1987: p. 258). According to Bookchin, we must promote ‘the values of humanism, cooperation, community, and public service’ not only in schools, local societies and other institutions, but in the arena of politics itself. In this sense, the means of achieving citizenship are not to be distinguished from that very end; we acquire civic virtue through civic practice. For Bookchin, the development of citizenship, ‘the need to foster civic solidarity’, is a creative, ethical and educative process that speaks to ‘the deeply human desire for self-expression in a meaningful spiritual community’ (ibid.: p. 259). In Bookchin’s scheme, then, authentic citizenship – and, in turn, solidarity – must be nurtured by learning, both through ‘traditional’ educational institutions and a society and politics orchestrated in such a way that the level of participation by each member of the collective is enhanced to an optimum degree.

The final of Bookchin’s proposed coordinates is economic. Noting the danger posed to municipal freedom by class divisions brought about by economic inequality, Bookchin places his hopes for the preservation of solidarity in contemporary ‘transclass issues’ – notably the threat of nuclear conflict, increasingly authoritarian state structures and, of course, ecological degradation – that have emerged as a result of urbanisation and dominatory social relations (ibid.: p. 260). These types of issues, Bookchin claims, transcend class interests and often bring into effect the coalescence on a local basis of individuals and groups that would otherwise remain relatively disparate. Bookchin also points to the emergence and development of feminism, a movement which recognises that ‘gender oppression afflicts wealthy women, no less than poor’ (ibid.: p. 260-261). For Bookchin, the development of a ‘general social interest’ – arguably pre-empting Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s

134 concept of the ‘multitude’ (Hardt and Negri, 2006) – is symptomatic of a significant structural shift not only at the political level, but at the economic as well (ibid.: p. 261). For the classical liberal conception of private property – the mythology that sees the individual citizen as economically self-sufficient – is being undermined by a global economy that is increasingly dominated by corporate hegemony. A solution, Bookchin tells us, lies not in the nationalisation of property (he sees this as merely a different shade of bureaucratisation to that which concentrates economic power in the hands of a corporate elite) but in its ‘municipalisation’, the management of the municipality’s economy ‘by the community as part of a politics of self-management’ (ibid.: p. 262). The municipalisation of the economy is a quite different thing to its collectivisation, which, as Bookchin sees it, consists in a continuation of contractual relationships and thus leaves the door open for the reentry of private property. Further, through the principle of workers’ control, collectivisation encourages competition between collectively controlled units and in perpetuating occupational identities – those of factory workers, agricultural workers, professionals, etc. – it has the potential to undermine the solidarity of the whole through the crystallisation of separate interests (ibid.: pp. 262-263). In other words, collectivisation is morphologically incompatible with the economic priorities of Bookchin’s proposed model. By contrast to the approach of colectivisation, Bookchin’s project of libertarian municipalism ‘politicises the economy and dissolves it into the civic domain’, so that ‘property’ is controlled by ‘the citizen body in assembly as citizens – not as … vocationally oriented special-interest groups’ (ibid.: p. 263).

However, given the reinforcement of the municipality by its own economic structure, the potential for the fragmentation of individual communities from the confederation surely increases. It is possible, therefore, that the municipalisation of the economy does more to threaten solidarity than to protect it. There is seemingly little provision to prevent the municipality coming to resemble, as Bookchin puts it, ‘a parochial city- state of the kind that appeared in the late Middle Ages’ (ibid.). Bookchin subsequently points out that, in fact, the principal cause of solidarity’s diminution during the medieval era was not increased differentiation between communities, but rather ‘stratification from within’, which occurred along the lines of wealth, status, family origin and vocational identity (ibid.: p. 264). By contrast, the municipalisation of the economy dissolves both vocational differences and incorporates ‘communal

135 forms of distribution’ which serve to institutionalise the principle of ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’ (ibid.). Further, Bookchin notes, economic municipalisation must recognise and emphasise the importance of communities’ interdependence. Ultimately, interdependence in all spheres constitutes the bulwark of universal solidarity against tendencies towards parochialism. ‘Shared needs and resources’, Bookchin tells us, ‘imply the existence of sharing and, with sharing, communication, rejuvenation by new ideas, a wider social horizon that yields a wider sensibility to new experiences’ (ibid.). Put another way, the very distinctiveness of individual communities is what renders their needs interdependent and harmonious as opposed to antagonistic. If one municipality specialises in the cultivation of wheat but lacks the engineering base from which to build machinery to plough the soil and harvest its crop efficiently, while another is perfectly capable of manufacturing such machinery but is situated on a particularly barren area of land, then the needs of the two communities are not opposed to one another; on the contrary, they are harmonised. Simplistic though this example may be, in Bookchin’s scheme, the same principle can apply to a more complex networked and confederated economy comprised of a great many municipalities.

Of course, there are significant practical limitations to Bookchin’s proposals for libertarian municipalism. Both Clark and Robert Graham have argued that it is quite simply unrealistic for administrative procedures to be divorced entirely from the policy-making process and for that process to remain the exclusive prerogative of the municipal assembly in the way that Bookchin stipulates. As Clark puts it, ‘It seems impossible to imagine any form of assembly government that could formulate such specific directives on complex matters that administrators would have no significant role in shaping policy’ (Clark, 1998: p. 164). If at least some level of administrative involvement in policy-making is inevitable, Bookchin’s requirement for all policy to be formulated by the popular assembly is undermined. Further, Graham claims that the de facto policy-making power attributed to administrators under Bookchin’s scheme reintroduces the very ‘hierarchical structure of authority’ that he set out to dissolve in the first place, since administrative specialists will have unique influence on policy implementation in their relevant areas (Graham, 2004: p. 20). He also expresses doubts to do with the process of policy-making within the municipal assembly itself, attesting that Bookchin fails to provide us with a convincing vision of political

136 relationships that are genuinely non-hierarchical. For the municipal assembly to function effectively as a centre of policy-making, decisions must ultimately be taken by majority vote. For Graham, this inevitably leads to a situation whereby the majority wields political authority, since it has to enforce its favoured policy against the will of the minority. As such, he concludes, ‘Whenever there is a lack of unanimity on a policy decision … a hierarchical relationship will arise’ (ibid.: p. 19).

Bookchin’s riposte would likely emphasise the distinction between personal autonomy and social freedom – two concepts which he sees as often confused, especially in relation to anarchism(s). For Bookchin, the former connotes a somewhat egoistic notion which ‘upholds individual rights over – and against – those of the collective’ (Bookchin, 1995b: p. 14). The consequence of this, says Bookchin, is that there is ‘no basis whatever for social institutionalization’, and ‘Even democratic decision-making is jettisoned as authoritarian’ (ibid.: p. 17). Indeed, as he sees it, to prioritise the individual over the collective is to award ‘a minority of one sovereign ego the right to abort the decision of a majority’ (ibid.). In defence of his vision for libertarian municipalism, Bookchin therefore insists that a truly free society must be predicated on the principle of direct democracy. Accordingly, policy decisions would be arrived upon following open discussion by citizens in assembly, whereupon minorities – even minorities of one – would be accredited plenty opportunity to present counter-arguments. The outcome of this process, he claims, is in fact radically removed from the subordination of the individual to the collective, since it allows for ‘ongoing dissensus – the all-important process of continual dialogue, disagreement, challenge, and counter-challenge without which social as well as individual creativity would be impossible’ (ibid. – emphasis in original). So the solidarity or philia that Bookchin identifies as essential to municipal life actually serves to enhance individuality. We may not always get our own way, but, for Bookchin, getting one’s own way represents a degenerate notion of personal autonomy which bears no resemblance to genuine freedom. On the contrary, we achieve a genuine freedom, we realise an authentic form of individuality only in an explicitly social context. In the case of Bookchin’s libertarian municipalism, this social context is the municipal assembly, and we become individuals not by removing ourselves from the collective when we disagree with the outcome of the democratic process, but by engaging in that process in the first instance, by challenging our own

137 assumptions and those of others in the political arena. The juxtaposition of personal autonomy and social freedom is therefore crucial, since the latter conception – which, for Bookchin, constitutes freedom as such – is always morphologically linked to solidarity. Indeed, he explicitly states that, in contrast to the ‘self-sovereign individual’ implied by the notion of ‘autonomy’, ‘freedom dialectically interweaves the individual with the collective’ (ibid.: p. 12). In Bookchin’s case, as we have seen, this solidarity is manifest through the adjacent concepts of politics and citizenship and the peripheral proposals for libertarian municipalism.

Whether Bookchin’s pleas of innocence to the charges of majority authoritarianism are convincing or not, this is not the only difficulty that critics have perceived in his political project. Indeed, further practical issues have been flagged up. In maximising participation in the public sphere, and in ascribing the role of economic management to that same municipal body, even Bookchin’s sympathisers must concede that he is asking a lot of the institutional framework he envisages. As Damian White has observed, Bookchin’s libertarian municipalism is at risk of creating a ‘democratic overload’ (White, 2008: p. 176). In other words, if every policy decision is to be made at the level of the municipality then, quite simply, there will be an awful lot of decision making to be done there – arguably more than the citizens’ assembly could cope with. It seems inevitable that a good deal of individuals’ time would be expended in the political arena, with potentially little left over for productive activity and leisure. As such, Bookchin places great import on the development of a ‘liberatory technology’ – one which is able ‘to produce a surfeit of goods with a minimum of toil’ and thus serves ‘to open the social arena permanently to the revolutionary people’ (Bookchin, 1986: p. 152). Such a technology, writes Bookchin would allow not just for more efficient production, but would also enable us to consider ‘how the machine, the factory and the mine could be used to foster human solidarity and to create a balanced relationship with nature and a truly organic ecocommunity’ (ibid.: p. 127- 128). The question as to the extent of the liberatory capacity of technology is not one I wish to address here, but even if we assume Bookchin’s assessment of its potential to be accurate, there remain, as we have seen, significant practical criticisms of his municipal project. Nevertheless, it is a truism that Bookchin’s attempt to redefine the political according to a direct-democratic ethos, to refocus politics on spaces other than that occupied by the centralised nation state represents a significant attempt to

138 ignite human solidarity and lay the foundations for an ecological society. As White has noted, as increasingly complex networks of association – both local and global – have evolved, ‘the potential for post-national politics has gained new traction’ (White, 2008: p. 176) Indeed, White singles out the broad vision of radical currents within the global justice movement for an alternative version of globalisation involving ‘a multi- tiered and multi-scale network of democratic bodies from city-states down to village and neighbourhood assemblies’, which, he acknowledges, ‘does bear some resemblance with Bookchin’s writings’ (ibid.: p. 177). Certainly, it cannot be denied that the demands for global justice and a more democratic system of global institutions echo almost precisely Bookchin’s intentions for libertarian municipalism – that is, the need:

To restructure our institutions into richly articulated forms, to reorganize our relationships into creative forms of human solidarity, to re-empower our communities and cities so that they can effectively counteract state and corporate power … and to create a new nonhierarchical and participatory relationship between humanity and nature (Bookchin, 1987: p. 267)

Conclusion: a legacy of solidarity? This chapter has sought to determine, by way of a morphological analysis, the place of the concept of solidarity in the thought of Murray Bookchin and the way in which that concept is decontested. Bookchin’s concept incorporates four idea-components in addition to the ineliminable component: universal inclusion; social-ecological harmony; collective responsibility; and the social production of individuality. The internal morphology of Bookchin’s concept is displayed in Figure 5:

Figure 5: Bookchin's concept of solidarity

Social Universal production of inclusion individuality

Individual- collective bond

Collective Social-ecological responsibility harmony 139

Bookchin’s ideal is for a solidarity that applies universally to all of humankind. His insistence that an ecological society is only possible through human solidarity is only compatible with a decontestation of solidarity that includes the notion of universal inclusion. Further, his observations on the advances – and, equally, the concessions – made by solidarity throughout human history confirm that the direction of progress is that which moves towards an increasingly wide circle of social inclusion. When genuine solidarity is achieved within human society, Bookchin argues, the relationship between nature and humanity – or ‘first nature’ and ‘second nature’ – will come to be solidary also.

But can there really be genuine solidarity between human and non-human nature? If, as Axel Honneth has argued, solidarity is understood as ‘an interactive relationship in which subjects mutually sympathise with their various different ways of life because, among themselves, they esteem each other symmetrically’ (Honneth, 1996: p. 128), then surely a relationship of this kind between humanity and nature is not possible. It goes without saying that non-human nature, including both animals and other organisms – and even objects – within the biosphere, are simply not capable of recognition in the same way as are human beings. Accordingly, it would seem that the relationship between human and non-human nature can only ever be a one-way street. Indeed, this is equally the case when humans’ attitudes and behaviour towards the natural world are deferential as it is when they are dominatory and exploitative. However, for Bookchin, an ecological outlook does not view nature merely as a passive backdrop against which social life is played out (Bookchin, 2005: p. 114). Indeed, in organic societies, he tells us, ‘the very notion of nature is always social … in an ontological sense that the protoplasm of humankind retains an abiding continuity with the protoplasm of nature’ (ibid.). For Bookchin, then, humanity and nature are not entirely separate entities. Of course, the first nature-second nature dichotomy implies a distinction of some sort, but Bookchin’s stated goal is to synthesise these two entities into a ‘third nature’, ‘a more complete nature that is conscious, thinking and purposeful … [and] ethical and rational, not simply physiological and biochemical’ (ibid.: p. 11). The project of social ecology consists in the reconciliation of humanity and nature, the re-entry of humankind into the process

140 of natural evolution. This re-entry involves not only a ‘naturalisation of humanity’, but also a ‘humanisation of nature’ (ibid.: p. 411). Then – and only then – is nature capable of the recognition necessary for solidarity, since only with the re-entry of humanity into nature does nature become self-conscious. For Bookchin, it is humanity itself that represents the rational capacity of a complete nature, as part of which ‘we speak for a fullness of mind that can articulate nature’s latent capacity to reflect upon itself, to function within itself as its own corrective and guide’ (ibid.: p. 411). In this way, Bookchin’s concept of solidarity is not only social, but ecological, too – it incorporates a notion of social-ecological harmony.

Bookchin’s account of the solidaristic practices of organic societies is suggestive of a concept of solidarity that incorporates the notion of collective responsibility. Highlighting the obligation of all members of society to participate in communal affairs, he stresses the importance of fostering ‘a sense of responsibility for the community’, and of the responsibility of the community to provide for the needs of all individuals in it (Bookchin, ibid.: p. 111). The interlinkage of solidarity with the adjacent concept of citizenship allows for further development of collective responsibility through civic engagement and political participation. When citizens confront and engage with one another on a regular basis in order to make decisions that directly determine the way in which the community functions, the feeling of collective responsibility is strengthened.

The adjacency of citizenship also impacts upon the manner in which Bookchin’s concept of solidarity addresses the issue of individuality. Indeed, he sees the practice of civic virtue – and of social life generally - as ‘the necessary flesh and blood for genuine individuality’ and argues that amongst our defining characteristics as social beings are ‘our capacities for solidarity with each other, for mutually enhancing our self-development and creativity and attaining freedom within a socially creative and institutionally rich collectivity’ (Bookchin, 1987: pp. 248, 249). Bookchin’s concept of solidarity thus incorporates the notion of individuality as a social product.

The adjacent concept of citizenship is crucial to the decontestation of solidarity in Bookchin’s morphology. Bookchin’s concept of citizenship stresses notions of civic virtue, political participation and non-hierarchical, decentralised political institutions.

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These components add meaning to citizenship’s ineliminable component: membership of a political community. The function of the morphological linkage of

Figure 6: Solidarity and citizenship in Bookchin’s morphology

Solidarity Citizenship

Social Political Civic virtue production of Universal participation individuality inclusion

Individual- Membership of collective political community bond

Collective Social-ecological Non-hierarchical, responsibility harmony decentralised institutions

solidarity with citizenship is to make the two concepts interdependent, so that certain of the idea-components within those concepts provide each other with logical support and cultural shape. Citizenship thus provides a supportive framework for solidarity because, for instance, the exercise of civic virtue helps to produce a feeling of collective responsibility. Equally, the notion of social-ecological harmony within the concept of solidarity is safeguarded by citizenship’s basis in non-hierarchical political forms. Further, Bookchin sees political participation as a crucial means of social intercourse that allows for citizens to realise their individuality. Figure 6 displays the morphological relationship between Bookchin’s concepts of solidarity and citizenship:

Perhaps Bookchin’s most important contribution is his identification of social solidarity as a fundamental feature of an ecologically sound society. Ultimately, according to Bookchin, organic societies’ internal solidarity would succumb with the emergence of hierarchy. Of course, this transformation did not take place overnight, but throughout a ‘millennia-long era that separates the earliest horticultural communities from the “high civilizations” of antiquity’ (ibid.: p. 130). This period saw the gradual emergence of towns, cities and eventually empires, and with them a

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‘new social arena in which the collective control of production was supplanted by elitist control, kinship relations by territorial and class relations, and popular assemblies or councils of elders by state bureaucracies’ (ibid.). The consequences of this, claims Bookchin, were hugely detrimental to the biosphere inhabited by humans, since their relationship to it inevitably came to reflect their relationships with each other. The decay of human solidarity unavoidably brought about the dislocation of humanity from nature and the subsequent domination of the latter by the former.

However, the re-entry of humanity into nature that Bookchin sees as necessary for an ecological existence does not necessitate a return to the primitive modes of living that existed in organic societies. On the contrary, Bookchin is insistent that ‘there can be no return to the past – to the domestic realm, to the age-ranks, or to the kinship relationships of tribalism … to the myths, amulets, magical practices, and idols – female or male – of the past’ (Bookchin, 1996: p. 93). However, that is not to say that the proper solution to the present crisis cannot take selective inspiration from the social and ecological practices of previous societies, so long as it simultaneously attempts to overcome those societies’ social deficiencies. ‘While we redeem what is valuable in premodern societies for enhancing human solidarity and an ecological sensibility’, Bookchin argues, ‘we must also transcend all the parochial and divisive features of the past and present’ (Bookchin, 1996: p. 93). Bookchin terms this stock of valuable social practices the ‘legacy of freedom’, but one might just as easily refer to it as a ‘legacy of solidarity’, since it consists in the rediscovery of types of social relations that help build solidarity and thus foster an ecological outlook.

This is the point at which Bookchin’s political project takes off, and the stripe of solidarity runs strongly throughout his thought, from the central assumptions of his philosophy of social ecology to his utopian politics of libertarian municipalism. I have argued that the extent to which Bookchin’s ideology is influenced by solidarity is evidence that the concept resides within the core of its morphology. Further, the concept can clearly be seen to be interlinked with further core concepts – notably freedom and equality – in such a way that the relationships between these concepts are fundamental to the decontestation of each of them. Further still, the importance of solidarity in Bookchin’s ideology is manifest in additional adjacent concepts and also at the morphological periphery. It is impossible to fully grasp Bookchin’s vision

143 for libertarian municipalism without an understanding of the way in which its prescriptions are inextricably linked to the core concept of solidarity. Indeed, the notions of a reinvigorated citizenship and a reclamation of politics from the discipline of statecraft are explicitly expressed as concepts that are interdependent with solidarity. Whilst an active notion of citizenship requires a level of social solidarity, communities achieve a greater level of solidarity through the very practice of civic virtue. Only by instituting a politics that is human in scale, argues Bookchin, can we forge a genuine solidarity and subsequently a genuinely ecological sensibility.

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6. Chomsky’s concept of solidarity

The humanistic conception regards a child as a gardener regards a young tree, i.e. as something with a certain intrinsic nature, which will develop into an admirable form given proper soil and air and light.

Bertrand Russell, The Prospects of Industrial Civilization (Russell, 1959: p. 229)

But by observing Nature and her laws. And this will lay The warp out for us – her first principle: that nothing’s brought Forth by any supernatural power out of naught.

Lucretius, The Nature of Things (Lucretius, 2007: p. 7)

Noam Chomsky has been described in the New York Times as ‘arguably the most important intellectual alive’ (Robinson, 1979: p. 3); according to The Guardian, he ranks ‘with Marx, Shakespeare, and the Bible as one of the ten most quoted sources in the humanities’ (Jaggi, 2001); and in 2005 he topped a Prospect magazine poll of the world’s greatest public intellectuals (Blackburn, 2005). But whilst Chomsky’s is certainly the most prominent anarchist-intellectual voice in the global justice movement, there is some uncertainty about his place in the anarchist canon. This is due in part to his tendency to borrow heavily from various strands of thought outside of the anarchist tradition – most notably classical liberalism and libertarian variants of socialism and Marxism. Whilst some have interpreted this as a lack of ideological purity which precludes his inclusion in the anarchist family, Chomsky’s pluralistic approach may also be seen as an attempt to broaden the theoretical horizons of the libertarian socialist tradition19 (Marshall, 1994: p. 618). Although he does not see himself as an original anarchist thinker, Chomsky does identify himself as an

19 Chomsky uses the terms ‘anarchism’, ‘anarcho-syndicalism’ and ‘libertarian socialism’ virtually interchangeably. All three signify what might be understood in the British or European context as ‘social anarchism’ or ‘socialist anarchism’. His occasional usage of the latter two can be attributed to the potential confusion in the United States of ‘anarchism’ with right-wing libertarianism or anarcho- capitalism. 145 anarchist, and indeed, his role in establishing the contemporary relevance of anarchism as both a credible social theory and a global movement are not in doubt.

Given that his apparent illustriousness has received such mainstream recognition, it is a curious point that in his native America, at least, Chomsky’s writings on politics and society are rather less than well-respected – let alone admired or endorsed – by a majority within the academy and public life more generally. For, indeed, as Chomsky himself has noted with some amusement, ‘If you go back and look at the context of [the New York Times] remark, the sentence was: “arguably the most important intellectual alive, how can he write such nonsense about international affairs and foreign policy?”’ (Chomsky, 1989: p. 35). Such dismissive attitudes towards Chomsky’s increasingly vast bibliography on politics, society, international relations and current affairs can be attributed in part to the fact that his main contribution to knowledge has been made in an altogether separate discipline: Chomsky is primarily a professor of linguistics, an area in which the impact of his work has arguably remained unrivalled in recent times. That his principal academic enterprise belongs in another field has seemingly lent thrust to an intellectual snobbery whereby academic specialists in politics and related subjects do not welcome intrusions into their disciplines by those, like Chomsky, who are perceived to belong elsewhere. Further, as Chomsky has noted, by contrast to Europe and elsewhere, in the United States there is much less of a culture of radical criticism amongst the intelligentsia (Chomsky, 2004: p. 135). Rather, he claims, in the US the function of the intellectual classes – journalists, academics, teachers and so on – tends to serve the interests of ruling elites, to reproduce capitalistic relations and, to use the title of one of Chomsky’s most influential works, to legitimise state power by ‘manufacturing consent’ (Herman and Chomsky, 1994). As such, radical voices such as that of Chomsky tend to be frozen out, since in order to become a successful political intellectual within an essentially capitalist institutional framework one must generally adhere to the prevailing orthodoxy.

There is an additional explanation for Chomsky’s marginalisation: namely that his writings on social and political matters tend in both format and style towards the journalistic, rather than the so-called ‘academic’. It is true that in relation to politics Chomsky is most properly considered a critic or a commentator rather than a

146 theoretician. Indeed, Chomsky is actually quite sceptical about the notion of political or social ‘theory’ as such, questioning whether there is ‘anything in the social sciences that even merits the term “theory”?’ That is, some explanatory system involving hidden structures with non-trivial principles that provide understanding of phenomena?’ ‘If so’, he answers, ‘I’ve missed it’ (Chomsky, 1969: p. 271). According to Chomsky, a genuine theory must proffer some explanation of phenomena in terms that are otherwise hidden or not immediately obvious. Chomsky does not consider his own work to fulfil this criterion, since in his view the workings of the present socio-political system are quite obvious – or at least potentially so – to those who possess what he calls ‘Cartesian common sense’ or ‘the kind of normal scepticism and willingness to apply one’s analytical skills that almost all people have and that they can exercise’ (Chomsky, 1988a: p. 35). In other words, there is not a huge deal about social and political structures that is beyond the comprehension of the average citizen, provided they are equipped with the correct information. (The actual provision of said information is, of course, another matter entirely.) As such, the notion of ‘theory’ as the exclusive domain of an intellectual elite capable of providing explanation of the otherwise unknowable is, in Chomsky’s view, redundant.

But if Chomsky is not a theorist, does this not raise questions as to his suitability as the subject of a technical, theoretical analysis such as that in which this study has sought to engage? Perhaps, but if we apply Chomsky’s qualifying criteria, then it is likely that none of the other writers studied here would be considered theoreticians either – he would likely argue that the ‘theories’ of Bakunin, Kropotkin and Bookchin do not constitute explanatory systems that uncover any otherwise hidden truths. Nevertheless, it remains the case that these three thinkers are far more explicit in their use of distinguishable theoretical frameworks than is Chomsky, whose work, as we have said, is noticeably more journalistic in style. Though it may not be clear, there is certainly a distinction between Chomsky’s political writings and the political theory or philosophy undertaken by his anarchist antecedents. In spite of this, Alison Edgley has argued that Chomsky’s writings on politics do conform to a discernible theoretical framework (Edgley, 2000). Edgley’s claim is founded on the observation that Chomsky’s work consists in the compilation of highly detailed accounts of political and social events and issues that do betray a consistent ‘form and structure’ (ibid.: p. 5). Further, she argues, given that Chomsky makes certain ‘propositions

147 about human behaviour and even predictions of a distinctly political kind’ that are based on ‘a description of the natural mind’, ‘his analysis has all the hallmarks of a theory’ (ibid.: p. 34). On Edgley’s reading, the theoretical components in Chomsky are often overlooked because they are obscured by empirical detail: ‘The framework is never at the forefront’, she tells us, since Chomsky is keen to discourage us from ‘standing back from the picture so that we take in only its form and structure which allows us to remove our feelings about its content, precisely because we ignore the detail’ (ibid.). So Chomsky’s work has a seemingly atheoretical quality, but is nevertheless characterised by a consistency of approach that suggests some general theoretical principles. Of course, these principles constitute what can, in Freeden’s sense of the word, be properly referred to as an ‘ideology’. For in Freeden’s scheme ideologies are not solely the preserve of the intellectual elite – still less of those engaged in high theory or political philosophy. It is important to remember that, far from it, ideologies are ‘ubiquitous forms of political thinking, reflecting as they do variegated perceptions, misperceptions, and conceptualisations of existing or imagined social worlds’ (Freeden, 1996: p. 22). Theorist or not, from the morphological viewpoint Chomsky is most certainly an ideologist, whose interpretation of and vision for the political world inevitably displays some conceptual pattern. Further, this conceptual pattern – or ideological morphology – includes a conception of solidarity, to which this analysis now turns.

The first section deals with Chomsky’s essentialism, and his assertion that any political or social theory should be founded upon a conception of human nature. Chomsky offers the suggestion – albeit tentatively – that the capacity for solidarity with others might constitute a feature of human nature, and subsequently that society should be organised to encourage its positive realisation. The second section explores Chomsky’s reappraisal of Enlightenment philosophy, placing particular emphasis on his reapplication of classical liberal notions of liberty to the capitalist mode of production. Ultimately, Chomsky concludes that capitalism negates individual freedom, which, decontested as the realisation of human potential, is dependent upon equality and solidarity. The third section considers the way in which the concepts of solidarity, equality and freedom are interlinked within the core of Chomsky’s anarchism, and finds that each is an essential precondition for the realisation of the others. In the fourth section, I characterise Chomsky’s concept of

148 solidarity as incorporating a notion of collective responsibility. According to Chomsky, this collective responsibility in manifested in the communal or social provision of wellbeing for all, and in a social policy driven by the needs of all members of the community. On this point, Chomsky – at odds with many other anarchists – is somewhat ambivalent about the potential role of the state in the delivery of public services, etc. For although he regards the state as ultimately illegitimate, Chomsky sees the general popular support for public provision as indicative of a deeper feeling of solidarity that might be channelled instead through non-hierarchical institutions. In the final section, I analyse Chomsky’s broad conception of class, whereby he seeks to extend revolutionary agency far beyond the oppressed working classes to create a universally inclusive social alliance based on ethical objections to injustice and inequality and a normative appeal to solidarity.

Essentialism and solidarity As I have said, Chomsky’s principal academic contribution has been in linguistics, a discipline which he ‘has been widely accepted as having revolutionised … in its goals, boundaries, epistemology, theory and methodology’ (Garraty and Sternstein, eds., 1974: p. 915). Chomsky has often sought to downplay the connections between his work in linguistics and his political and social analyses, but has acknowledged that ‘If there is a connection, it is on a rather abstract level’ (Chomsky, 2007: p. 3). Despite his reluctance to draw parallels between these two streams of his intellectual activity, it is clear that Chomsky’s work in both fields is rooted in some quite distinct and fundamental ontological and anthropological assumptions. Importantly, as various commentators have observed, the link between Chomsky’s two worlds consists in his views on human nature (see, for instance, Edgley, 2000: p. 68; Otero, 2004: p. 5), which have been developed and reinforced through his research in linguistics and have served to inform the conceptual anatomy and political prescriptions of his ideology. Chomsky’s essentialism (‘the notion that human beings have certain essential characteristics that constrain or enable certain behaviour’ – Edgley, 2000: p. 34) is crucial for understanding his political thought. Further, his peculiar conception of human nature is particularly important for the decontestation of his concept of solidarity, for it provides both a limited framework for

149 the permutations of human society and political community and a distinct morphological context for his ideology more generally.

For Chomsky, any vision of the good society – or indeed, any normative claim regarding the human species – is necessarily founded on a conception of human nature. For Chomsky, a good society must be designed so as to enable:

the satisfaction of human needs, insofar as material conditions allow. To command attention and respect, a social theory must be grounded on some concept of human needs and human rights, and in turn, on the human nature that must be presupposed in any serious account of the origin and character of these needs and rights (Chomsky, 1988a: p. 195)

As he puts it elsewhere, it is critical for political and social theory to centre on some idea ‘of what’s good for people, of their needs and rights, of the aspects of their nature that should be nurtured, encouraged and permitted to flourish for their benefit and that of others’ (Chomsky, 1996b: p. 70). Only once these criteria are satisfied can a political vision be said to be truly ethical in character, since only then is it consciously geared toward the betterment of the human lot. In other words, when we make normative claims about how society ought to be, ‘it is because we believe or are hoping that this change we are proposing is better for humans because of the way humans are’ (Chomsky, 1988b: p. 597). Further, it is highly desirable that any conception of what constitutes human nature is substantiated by scientific evidence. The problem, claims Chomsky, is that we have very little scientific evidence with which to define a biological concept of human nature. This problem marks the intersection between Chomsky’s work in linguistics and his work in politics, for despite our relative lack of knowledge about human beings’ essential characteristics, ‘in specific domains such as the study of language, we can begin to formulate a significant concept of “human nature”, in its intellectual and cognitive aspects’, provided we ‘consider the faculty of language as part of human nature’ (Chomsky, 1998b: p. 77 – emphasis added). Chomsky insists that since language constitutes a uniquely human attribute and, further, since language is one aspect of human creative intelligence about which our knowledge is relatively strong, it represents a legitimate and potentially fruitful avenue in which to explore the content and character of human nature more generally. Indeed, suggests Chomsky, ‘we might try to proceed from the detailed investigation of language and its use to a deeper and 150 more specific understanding of the human mind’; the study of language may provide us with a vehicle ‘to study other aspects of that human nature which … must be correctly conceived if we are to develop, in theory, the foundations for a rational social order’ (Chomsky, 2008: p. 81).

Chomsky’s most important contribution to linguistic theory is the concept of ‘universal grammar’, ‘a theory of the fixed and invariant principles that constitute the human language faculty and the parameters of variation associated with them’ (ibid.: pp. 232-233). The thrust of Chomsky’s theory is that human beings have a genetic predisposition for the development of ‘grammar’, conceived in general terms as the capacity for language understanding. This is evidenced by the fact that children acquire sophisticated knowledge of their respective language remarkably easily given the very limited amount of data they are exposed to. For instance, a child will very quickly grasp the basic sentence structures appropriate to his or her respective language and implement them consistently, creating new, coherent sentences from virtually infinite possible word-combinations. This gulf in complexity between data input and knowledge output and its creative use, insists Chomsky, leads to the inevitable conclusion that there must be something innate, some genetically programmed language faculty which is common to all human beings, regardless of which language they end up speaking (which is determined, of course, by their environment and their upbringing). From this, Chomsky infers that if the language faculty is innate, it is highly likely that other aspects of human intelligence are innate as well. The philosophical significance of this, he says, is that ‘just as people somehow can construct an extraordinarily rich system of knowledge of language on the basis of rather limited and degenerate experience, similarly, people develop implicit systems of moral evaluation which are more or less uniform from person to person’ (Chomsky, 2004: p. 210). If human beings have an innate and restricted capacity for language, the argument runs, there is no reason to suspect that other aspects of human intelligence and behaviour are any different. It is therefore conceivable that we might ‘develop a social science based on empirically well- founded propositions concerning human nature’ (Chomsky, 2008: p. 90). Subsequently, in the same way that we study ‘the range of humanly attainable languages’, we might also attempt to ascertain the extent of human capabilities in ‘artistic expression … scientific knowledge … and perhaps even the range of ethical

151 systems and social structures in which humans can live and function, given their intrinsic capacities and needs’ (ibid.).

It should be noted at this juncture that the notion of a biological human nature is highly controversial and has long been the object of much mistrust within the social sciences. It is often argued that the conception of a fixed, invariant human essence lends scientific and philosophical bases to various forms of oppression, since it is possible that ‘biological differences amongst humans can be moulded into weapons to justify discrimination’ (Chomsky, 2004: p. 357). For instance, if a person of one race is found on average to have a slightly higher IQ than a person of another, this may be used as justification for discrimination against the race perceived to be ‘less intelligent’. There are of course innumerable historical examples of similar attempts – concerning both psycho-social and physical capabilities – to give grounds for varying forms of oppression, ranging from slavery and racial segregation to modern patriarchal social structures and anti-gay discourses, to name but a handful. However, for Chomsky, even if a genuine correlation did exist between, say, race and IQ, its discovery ‘would have essentially null scientific interest’ (Chomsky, 2008: p. 252). It is only in the ‘social domain’ that such a discovery acquires significance and, even then, only to those (racists, sexists, homophobes, etc.) who wish to treat each individual ‘not as what he or she is but rather as an example of a certain category’ (ibid.).

Nevertheless, what Chomsky calls ‘environmentalism’20 – the doctrine that human beings’ mental and social life is shaped by experience rather than their nature – has often been perceived as a progressive doctrine, since it undermines the notion that each person has a fixed and natural place in society. Regardless of its scientific veracity or otherwise, this position would seem to be well-intentioned, but Chomsky gives the environmentalist argument short shrift. ‘It is true’, he insists, ‘that if people have no endowments, then they are equal in endowments: equally miserable and unfortunate’ (ibid.: pp. 251-252). Far from having progressive consequences, he argues, the notion of the human being as an ‘empty organism, completely plastic’ has profoundly reactionary ones, since it ‘eliminates any moral barriers to control and

20 Chomsky discussed the issue of whether or not there is an essential human nature at some length in a celebrated televised debate with Michel Foucault in 1971. (For a textual reproduction of the debate see Elders, ed., 2011.) 152 domination’ (Chomsky, 2004: p. 357). If there are no essential human characteristics, if humans are indefinitely malleable beings, then there can be no fundamental ethical constraints regarding the way in which social relations are constructed – prospective oppressors are effectively afforded philosophical carte blanche. It is patently evident to Chomsky that we are in fact unequal in terms of biological endowment, but he sees the fact that ‘humans differ markedly in their capacities, their interests, their aspirations’ as something to celebrate rather than abhor (ibid.). Indeed, he notes, ‘It is difficult to think of a vision closer to Hell than a society of clones, biologically identical’ (ibid.). Further, there is no reason to suspect that human beings’ natural diversity may provide grounds for the infringement of certain groups’ human rights: ‘Those who assume otherwise must be adopting the tacit premise that people’s rights or social reward are somehow contingent on their abilities’ (Chomsky, 1988a: p. 199). As Milan Rai has observed, though the tendency to deny the existence of potential natural differences between races and various other categories may be intended as a rejection of racism and other forms of oppression, it is nevertheless founded on the meritocratic assumption that ‘rights and rewards should accrue to ability and intelligence’, which is a thoroughly ‘disturbing and elitist doctrine’ (Rai, 1995: p. 190).

Chomsky, however, is convinced that human beings do indeed have an essential and invariant nature. Were it not so, then the human brain, he says, would constitute the only known organic thing in the universe that does not conform to a genetically determined pattern. As such, it would be ‘unique among the systems known to us in the natural world’ and ‘in effect, a tabula rasa on which the totality of historically determined social relations is inscribed’ (Chomsky, 1988a: p. 196). Equally, however, he does not deny the impact of social structure in the shaping of human behaviour: ‘Human nature has lots of ways of realising itself, humans have lots of capacities and options. Which ones reveal themselves depends to a large extent on the institutional structures’ (Chomsky, 1988b: p. 773). In other words, environmental factors do play a significant role in determining the types of behaviours that are manifest in individuals and groups, but the range of behaviours is limited in the first instance by human nature, by our essential characteristics. Whilst a child’s first language is of course dependent upon the language spoken by those around them in their formative years, they will nevertheless – given the correct encouragement –

153 learn a human language of some sort. In much the same way, individuals’ social practices and behaviours may conform to one of a number of different patterns, but the range of those available patterns is constrained by the needs and capabilities that make up our essential human nature. As such, argues Chomsky:

If we have institutions which make greed the sole property of human beings and encourage pure greed at the expense of other human emotions and commitments, we’re going to have a society based on greed, with all that follows. A different society might be organised in such a way that human feelings and emotions of other sorts, say solidarity, support, sympathy become dominant. Then you’ll have different aspects of human nature and personality revealing themselves. (ibid.)

Given this, Chomsky argues that psycho-biological and philosophical enquiry should seek to ascertain as accurately as possible the intrinsic properties of the human essence, so as to be able to recommend those social patterns and modes of living that best serve human needs and development. Indeed, moral progress to date, argues Chomsky, has virtually always coincided with the development of an increasingly sophisticated understanding of human nature. He gives the example of the gradual development of a common understanding that slavery constitutes an abuse of fundamental human rights, an instance in which the human species had eventually come to a ‘better understanding of the moral values rooted in our inner nature’ (Chomsky, 2008: p. 245). This process is an ongoing one: as our knowledge of who we are as a species grows, we attain a more refined ethical outlook and thus are able to conceive and prescribe more suitable – and ultimately more human – modes of social organisation.

Though adamant in his essentialism, Chomsky is somewhat sceptical about our ability to decode the precise character of human nature, at least at the current stage of scientific investigation. Indeed, as Edgley has noted, in Chomsky’s view, ‘we may not even have the faculties to begin to answer such a question’ (Edgley, 2000: p. 182). At present our knowledge and understanding of essential human characteristics is, says Chomsky, relatively ‘shallow’ and we must proceed therefore ‘on the basis of intuition and experience’ (Chomsky, 1996b: p. 70). Despite – or perhaps because of – our inability to make scientifically substantiated claims about human nature, our experience as a species counts for rather a lot when it comes to constructing a social theory. Taking into account this experience, says Chomsky, it is

154 reasonable to adopt a position of optimism, ‘meaning a commitment to change things for the better, in the hope that it is possible’ (in Bricmont, 2010: p. 74). A pessimistic stance is founded on the assumption that meaningful social change cannot be brought about and leads to the conclusion that current socio-political arrangements conform to our innate human needs. We are thus faced with a choice which Chomsky has compared to Pascal’s Wager:21 ‘assume nothing is possible, and the worst will come; assume that things can be improved, and perhaps they can’ (in Bricmont, 2010: p. 75). Of course, Chomsky’s hopes for the prospects of meaningful social change imply in turn certain hopes about human nature that make that change possible. Chomsky hopes that human beings’ innate characteristics do not include greed, competitiveness and the will to dominate others, but rather sympathy, solidarity, cooperation and the need for free, creative expression in association with others. It is this hope that allows him to promote a vision for a mode of social organisation which would ‘best encourage and accommodate the fundamental human need – if such it is – for spontaneous initiative, creative work, solidarity, pursuit of social justice’ (Chomsky, 2008: p. 90). As this chapter will make clear, amongst Chomsky’s hopes – and they are only hopes – about human nature is one concerning the potential human capacity for social solidarity as an alternative to individualism.

A ‘child of the Enlightenment’: Chomsky’s intellectual heritage A notable trait of the atheoretical appearance of Chomsky’s writings is that many of his political concepts lean heavily on the work of previous thinkers and are drawn quite directly from long-established traditions of social and political thought. Of course, this is by no means unusual. Less still does it constitute a unique characteristic of his more commentary-driven, applied approach, for the work of even the most original and abstract high theorists inevitably bears the influence – whether they acknowledge it or not – of previous thinkers. We have already observed Bakunin’s indebtedness to Hegel and Marx, for instance, Kropotkin’s inheritance from Guyau, amongst others, and Bookchin’s reliance on virtually all of the aforementioned thinkers and others besides. The point is that whilst a writer cannot

21 Pascal’s Wager: the view that it is rational to believe in God and to live one’s life accordingly, given the prospect of eternal bliss for believers and eternal damnation for non-believers in the eventuality that He does in fact exist. If He does not, then, believer or non-, one loses nothing (Blackburn, 2008: p. 268). 155 and should not be detached from their intellectual family tree, in some cases we may find it more necessary to explore the peculiar genealogy of their ideas. Chomsky’s is such a case, since much of his ideological morphology is decontested through direct invocations of previous thinkers’ work, both from within the anarchist tradition and beyond. In this section, we explore the way in which Chomsky borrows, critically develops and redeploys the ideas of others and how, through this process, he pieces together the morphology of his own ideology. Naturally, the central focus throughout is on the way in which this affects Chomsky’s decontestation of solidarity.

In his seminal essay ‘Language and Freedom’, (first presented as a lecture at the University Freedom and Human Sciences Symposium, Loyola University, Chicago, January 8-9, 1970) Chomsky invokes the revolutionary mood of the late eighteenth century, a period in which he argues, quoting F. W. J. Schelling, it was conceivable that ‘“the thought of making freedom the sum and substance of philosophy has emancipated the human spirit in all its relationships, and … has given to science in all its parts a more powerful reorientation than any earlier revolution …”’ (Chomsky, 2008: p. 76). Indeed, this scientific and philosophical reorientation constituted both a catalyst for and a reaction to the very real political demands that were emerging at a time when people were ‘struggling to cast off their chains, to resist authority that has lost its claim to legitimacy, to construct more humane and more democratic social institutions’ (ibid.). During such times, argues Chomsky, the philosopher is impelled to ‘inquire into the nature of human freedom and its limits’, and, he says, ‘We are living, once again, at such a time’ (ibid.). In 1970 Chomsky was referring to ‘revolutionary ferment’ in the developing world and the increasing feeling that advanced industrial societies too were ‘ripe for revolutionary change’ (ibid.), but it requires only a rudimentary understanding of contemporary global politics to see that his words might just as well ring true today, in the second decade of the twenty-first century. Given the ongoing crisis of capitalism and the global popular response to it, the renewed demands for freedom and democracy that have issued forth from various uprisings across the world and the countless social, political, economic and cultural challenges raised by the prospect of ecological catastrophe, one might claim once again that we are living in such a time as calls for radical transformation. Faced with these challenges, the natural response for Chomsky is to ‘consider, abstractly, the problems of human freedom, and turn with interest and serious attention to the

156 thinking of an earlier period when archaic social institutions were subjected to critical analysis and sustained attack’ (ibid.: p. 77). The period of which Chomsky speaks is, of course, the Enlightenment and he spends a great deal of time retrieving and reappraising the ideas of a number of its great (and also lesser known) thinkers and reapplying them to contemporary social conditions.

Chomsky identifies the intellectual roots of anarchism – and indeed those of his own ideology – in Enlightenment and classical liberal thought, a tradition which he sees as the progenitor of modern concerns for individual liberty, social solidarity, equality and human flourishing more generally (Chomsky, 2008: pp. 96-100). The common link between classical liberalism and the predatory capitalism that came to maturation in the nineteenth century, argues Chomsky, is one that has been made only retrospectively, for the tradition’s most prominent advocates22 could not have foreseen ‘the ways in which the notion “private person” would come to be reinterpreted in the era of corporate capitalism’ (ibid.: p. 86).

Indeed, argues Chomsky, ‘What we would call capitalism [Adam Smith] despised’ (Chomsky, 1996a: p. 19) and, in fact, the aggressive, accumulative individualism practiced by Smith’s contemporary admirers is quite contrary to his vision for human economic interaction in a genuinely free market. According to Chomsky, Smith’s advocacy of a market economy was borne of the assumption that ‘if you had perfect liberty, markets would lead to perfect equality’ (Chomsky, 2013: p. 36). Chomsky argues that Smith, as a classical liberal, devised a political economy founded on the belief that ‘people’s fundamental character involves notions like sympathy, and solidarity, the right to control their own work, and so on and so forth: all the exact opposite of capitalism’ (ibid.). However, this aspect of classical liberal thought has largely been lost; solidarity and equality have apparently migrated from the core of the ideology, allowing for individual freedom to be decontested in such a way that it carries within it notions of rapacious self-interest which served to justify the worst symptoms of the unfettered market. In Chomsky’s view, it seems, the emphasis in Smith’s philosophy and political economy on concepts such as solidarity (decontested through notions of reciprocal sympathy) and equality would place him

22 He is speaking here specifically of Wilhelm von Humboldt, although the same observation could equally be made, argues Chomsky, of the likes of Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, the more libertarian elements in the younger Rousseau and even in Locke. 157 in direct conflict with the productive modes and ideology with which classical liberalism would come to be associated soon after his death.

Now, whilst Chomsky’s reading of Smith as a ‘libertarian socialist’ (Chomsky, 1996a: p. 21) who ‘thought that people ought to be completely equal’ (Chomsky, 2013: p. 36) is clearly based – to say the least – on a somewhat selective appraisal of his writings, it is certainly arguable that Smith would be ‘strongly opposed to all of the idiocy [contemporary neoliberals] now spout in his name’ (ibid.). His work exhibits various evidence in support of this thesis. In his Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith emphasised the human capacity for sympathy as the foundation of human moral conceptions – a quite stark contrast from his caricature as a champion of selfishness. Even in The Wealth of Nations, which has come to be seen as something of a bible of deregulated capitalism, Smith observes that throughout human history, ‘All for ourselves and nothing for other people’ has constituted the ‘vile maxim of the masters of mankind’ (Smith, 1999a: p. 512). Later, in that same work, Smith warns against the dangers of the division of labour he is so often assumed to unmitigatedly extol: ‘The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same … generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become’ (Smith, 1999b: p. 368). Of course, this is not to claim that Smith was in any sense anti-capitalist. However, as Chomsky has pointed out, he was ‘pre-capitalist’ (Chomsky, 1996a: p. 19 – emphasis added), and – despite his prescient remarks on the potentially damaging effects of excessive specialisation – from the vantage point of the late eighteenth century he could not have anticipated in their entirety the psycho-social ramifications that a completely unfettered, industrialised capitalism would subsequently have. In drawing attention to these strands in Smith’s thought, Chomsky seeks to demonstrate that contemporary liberal thought no longer reflects the most vital progressive concerns of its founding fathers. As we shall see, Chomsky believes these concerns to have been preserved within anarchist ideology.

Chomsky applies the same line of thinking when dealing with the work of Humboldt. Whilst Humboldt’s classical liberal doctrine stands firmly against ‘all but the most minimal forms of state intervention in personal or social life’, writing in the 1790s, his

158 notion of individualism, says Chomsky, could not have taken into account the way in which industrial capitalism would come to alter the nature and effects of private power (Chomsky, 2008: p. 85). Indeed, Chomsky continues, quoting Rudolph Rocker, classical liberals such as Smith and Humboldt had no idea that ‘“Democracy with its motto of equality of all citizens before the law and Liberalism with its right of man over his own person both [would be] wrecked on realities of capitalist economy”’ (ibid.: p. 86). As such, classical liberalism made few if any provisions for social protection against the ‘irrational and destructive workings’ of the early capitalist free market (ibid.). Quite to the contrary, of course, its insistence upon the sovereignty of the free individual – conceived with the noble intention of protecting citizens from religious and governmental despotism – to this day has been deployed as the very justification for the exploitative socio-economic relations inherent to capitalist economic organisation. A self-described ‘child of the Enlightenment’ (Chomsky, 2004: p. 657), Chomsky has sought to reclaim classical liberal vocabularies and concepts that have been appropriated by capitalist discourse and to reinstate the Enlightenment ideals of a ‘“brotherhood of man”’, of natural rights, fundamental equality and ‘the insistence that there [are] real bonds of unity and solidarity among people across cultures’ (ibid.: p. 648). Of course, in his attempt to (re)gain control of certain aspects of political language, Chomsky can be understood in Freeden’s terms as enacting a prime function of ideologies. He undertakes this project through a reappraisal of Enlightenment thinking and a remoulding of classical liberal concepts in light of capitalist development over the last two centuries or more. Chomsky concludes that a logical application of those original principles to contemporary capitalism lends support to an anarchist (or ‘libertarian socialist’) position which emphasises the importance of equality and social solidarity alongside individual freedom and non-coercion. Framed in morphological terms, solidarity – a concept largely jettisoned by contemporary neoliberalism – thus plays a crucial role in the decontestation of freedom. It is the morphological proximity of freedom to solidarity that prevents it from gravitating towards negative notions of mere non- coercion and license, and allows for it to be decontested in a much more positive sense which emphasises the fulfilment of needs and the development of human potential.

159

We have already mentioned Humboldt, the German philosopher (and, incidentally, linguistic theorist) from whom John Stuart Mill took the epigraph to On Liberty (‘The grand, leading principle, towards which every argument unfolded in these pages directly converges, is the absolute and essential importance of human development in its richest diversity’ – quoted in Mill, 1989: p. 3). Humboldt has also borne considerable influence on Chomsky, who describes him as ‘one of the most stimulating and intriguing thinkers of the [Enlightenment] period’ and ‘an early and forceful advocate of libertarian values’ (Chomsky, 2008: p. 83). Mill’s epigraph points to the central concept of Humboldt’s philosophy: bildung (translated literally as ‘education’ or ‘formation’), meaning ‘the highest and most harmonious development of [human beings’] powers to a complete and consistent whole’ (Humboldt, 1969: p. 10). Importantly, as J. W. Burrow has put it, this process refers to the ‘development of the potentialities of the individual, the community, or the human race’ (Burrow, 1969: p. xxix). Bildung, then, is not concerned merely with individual flourishing – indeed, for Humboldt, the notion of individual development devoid of social context is an entirely fallacious one. Whilst ‘Freedom is the first and indispensable condition which the possibility of [the highest and most harmonious] development presupposes’ (Humboldt, 1969: p. 10), for Humboldt it is equally true that ‘The isolated man is no more able to develop than one who is fettered’ (ibid.: p. 100). As such, the goal of human society should be to forge ‘as many new social bonds as possible’ (ibid.). In other words, ‘social union’, as Humboldt puts it, along with freedom constitutes a prerequisite of successful human development. This idea is based on the natural interdependence which arises from the diversity of skills and faculties belonging to individuals within any given community. It is not possible for all of us to develop all of our innate capacities to their full. Even if every individual were endowed with equally natural ability in all areas of creative work and expression (which, of course, they are not), the nature of things simply does not permit each person to reach full maturation in each and every one of those aspects. Given this, says Humboldt, ‘It is through a social union … based on the internal wants and capacities of its members, that each is enabled to participate in the rich collective resources of all the others’ (ibid.:p. 11). Humboldt’s conception of ‘social union’ is therefore very similar to the organic model of solidarity developed almost exactly a century later by Durkheim (Durkheim, 1984). It is social interdependence as a product of individual difference that creates the solidaristic bonds necessary for both

160 individual flourishing and the development of society more generally, since it involves a degree of specialisation that allows for us to pursue our own personal needs and desires within a communitarian framework. Humboldt’s vision is thus defined, Chomsky tells us, by ‘a community of free association without coercion by the state or other authoritarian institutions’, conditions in which human beings are able to achieve the fullest development of their potentialities (Chomsky, 2008: p. 87). Further, the interdependence that arises as a result of our different capabilities and interests produces a solidarity that provides the best possible conditions for individual flourishing – since natural differentiation affords us the opportunity to pursue development in our desired specialist area – whether that be in the arts, in scientific investigation, in a particular craft or industry, in sport or in any other area of creative expression.

Whilst in Humboldt’s day the church and the state constituted the foremost authoritarian institutions, Chomsky points out that in the current era, ‘the basis of his critique is applicable to a broader range of institutions than he imagined’ (ibid.). Indeed, industrial and economic development has brought forth a significant shift in the sources of power and authority. The power to coerce is no longer concentrated solely in the institutions of the church and state, but is now exercised principally by those of private capital. The new external authoritarianism is economic in character, embodied in wage labour, excessive specialisation of skills and the domination of society by corporate capital more generally, and Chomsky argues that Humboldt’s analysis is equally applicable to these institutions.

It is clear to see how Humboldt’s philosophy appeals to the libertarian socialist in Chomsky, for Humboldt’s insistence upon the twin necessary conditions for human self-fulfilment – freedom and solidarity – clearly pre-empt anarchist priorities that would develop within the broader socialist movement during the nineteenth century. Indeed, as James McGilvray has observed, Chomsky sees anarchism as ‘a modification of the basic Enlightenment conception of the person as a free and responsible agent, a modification required to meet the challenge of private power’ (McGilvray, 2014: p. 198). The shift in social relations brought about by the new capitalistic economic model meant that freedom could no longer be conceived in terms relating merely to the absence of political coercion. Any meaningful notion of

161 freedom now had to be reframed in relation to the continuously morphing socio- economic milieu, and Chomsky sees the anarchist conception – morphologically intertwined with notions of equality and solidarity – as resembling the best response to this challenge. For Chomsky, there is a natural progression from the classical liberal notion of a human essence characterised by ‘a kind of creative urge, a need to control one’s productive, creative labour, to be free from authoritarian intrusions’ to the development of a rejection of capitalism in the nineteenth century, the corresponding relations of production of which violated that basic need to have control over one’s own labour. Chomsky thus designates Humboldt’s thought as ‘profoundly, though prematurely, anticapitalist’ and as suggestive of the early Marx and his discussion of alienated labour (Chomsky, 2013: pp. 8-9). Since classical liberal thought is opposed to state interference in social life as a result of its assumptions about the human need for liberty and so on, then ‘On the same assumptions, capitalist relations of production, wage labour, competitiveness, the ideology of “possessive individualism” – all must be regarded as fundamentally antihuman’ (ibid.: p. 9). Whilst the classical liberal concern for individual freedom had developed in response to the hierarchical structure of feudal society and the despotism of monarchical rule, its core ideals had not been extended to a critique of the deeply inegalitarian property relations ushered in by industrial capitalism. However, argues Chomsky, application of Humboldt’s reasoning to contemporary society leads to a different set of conclusions, ‘namely that we must dissolve authoritarian control over production and resources which … drastically limits human freedom’ (Chomsky, 2003: p. 26). In light of freedom’s newfound reliance upon economic equality, the libertarian baton was taken up by the socialist tradition. Indeed, given its response to the changing social and historical conditions, Chomsky argues that it is ‘libertarian socialism that has preserved and extended the radical humanist message of the Enlightenment’ and ‘is properly to be regarded as the inheritor of [the Enlightenment’s] liberal ideals’ (Chomsky, 2013: pp. 8, 9).

For Chomsky, then, Humboldt’s opposition to external authority can be applied to the coercive character of productive relations under the capitalist mode. Indeed, Chomsky tells us, quoting Humboldt, if a person ‘acts in a purely mechanical way, reacting to external demands or instruction rather than in ways determined by his own interests and energies and power, “we may admire what he does, but we

162 despise what he is”’ (Chomsky, 2008: p. 85). The condition of commodified labour under capitalist productive relations is unfree, for the compulsion to sell one’s labour- power to the capitalist is rooted in material need and is therefore external to the worker. For Chomsky, Humboldt’s analysis is thus pre-emptive of Marx’s theory of alienated labour, in that it is founded on a notion of human essence as inclusive of the fundamental need for free and creative expression (ibid.: p. 246). Indeed, for Humboldt, the character of labour is dramatically altered depending on the framework of productive relations within which it is performed. ‘Every occupation, of whatever nature,’ he tells us, ‘is more efficiently performed if pursued for its own sake alone, rather than for the results to which it leads’ (Humboldt, 1969: p. 35). In other words, the instrumental nature of labour carried out under capitalism renders the productive process inhuman; work done ‘under external direction and control’ makes the worker ‘a machine, not a full human being’ (Chomsky, 2008: p. 246). Conversely, says Humboldt, work done for the sake of work itself consists in the satisfaction of a fundamental human need and as such ‘what has first been chosen for its utility in general becomes ultimately attractive in itself … because action is dearer to human nature than mere possession’ (Humboldt, 1969: p. 35). More than this, satisfaction of that basic necessity – to do creative, productive work – must take place ‘under conditions of voluntary association in solidarity with others’ (Chomsky, 2004: p. 213). So, the necessary conditions for the fulfilment of that fundamental need for creative expression and productive work include not only the absence of external coercion, but also a social organisation based on cooperation and solidarity. On Chomsky’s reading, Humboldt’s vision is for ‘a society in which social fetters are replaced by social bonds’; order is not ensured by force but by a spontaneous solidarity (Chomsky, 2013: p. 8). For this vision to be realised, argues Chomsky, we must go well beyond the expressly political revolution advocated by the Enlightenment libertarians. We must strive also, argues Chomsky, echoing Fourier, for economic emancipation, ‘a final act of liberation that places control over the economy in the hands of free and voluntary associations of producers’ (ibid.: p. 12). Chomsky’s concept of solidarity is thus morphologically fastened to a recognisably socialist concept of equality, one which stresses an equal stake for all in the productive life of the community. Only when equality is achieved in the economic as well as the political realm – in fact, we can assume that all types of social relation must be fundamentally equal – is a genuine solidarity able to flourish, since only then

163 do we have the necessary freedom that allows for voluntary association in both production and consumption.

Aside from Humboldt, the Enlightenment thinker that Chomsky invokes most keenly is perhaps Rousseau. (Indeed, according to his editor, C. P. Otero, Chomsky himself should be thought of ‘as “a new Rousseau” or the Rousseau of our age’ (in Chomsky, 2004: p. 13).) Despite Bakunin’s vitriolic dismissal of Rousseau as ‘the real creator of modern reaction’, who ‘bred within himself the pitiless despotism of the statesman’ (Bakunin, 1970: p. 79), and subsequent interpretations of his Social Contract (1762) as a justification for totalitarianism (see, for example, Talmon, 1952; Crocker, 1968), Chomsky considers Rousseau’s earlier Discourse on Inequality (1755) to be ‘one of the earliest and most remarkable of the eighteenth-century investigations of freedom and servitude’ and ‘in many ways a revolutionary tract’ (Chomsky, 2008: p. 77). Indeed, the Rousseau of the Second Discourse,23 insists Chomsky, belongs to the same line of intellectual development that begins with Descartes and continues through Humboldt and the nineteenth century libertarians, which holds that the essential characteristics of the human essence involve an ‘instinct for liberty and creativity, a real human need to be able to work productively under conditions of one’s own choosing and determination in voluntary association with others’ (Chomsky, 2004: p. 437). On Chomsky’s reading, then, the younger Rousseau belongs to the same tradition whose libertarian principles are contravened by ‘slavery, wage-slavery, domination, authoritarianism and so on’, social relations which constitute a violation of ‘essential human principles’, and ‘which are injurious to the essential human nature, and therefore intolerable’ (ibid.). As such, argues Chomsky, the goal of a libertarian politics should be to ‘discover and to overcome … forms of authoritarian control, interference with personal dignity, human liberty and so on and so forth’ (ibid.).

23 It should be noted that Chomsky has been criticised for his allegedly ‘superficial reading’ of Rousseau (i.e. his overemphasis on the Discourse on Inequality and neglect of the Social Contract), which, so runs the accusation, presents ‘a simplistic distortion of Rousseau’s political views’, namely that he ‘believed that empirically existing laws are intrinsically corrupt, and that all existing forms of government are essentially illegitimate’ (Wise, 2011: p. 93). In Chomsky’s defence, whilst his representation of Rousseau is based solely on the Second Discourse, his work does imply a clear distinction between the young, libertarian Rousseau and the more mature author of the Social Contract (Otero, in Chomsky, 2004: p. 13). 164

Of particular interest to Chomsky is Rousseau’s conception of human nature and the fundamental role he assigns it in any rational process of social formation and organisation. Indeed, human nature, he insists, must always inform ‘the principles of natural right’ and constitute the ‘foundations of social existence’ (Chomsky, 2008: p. 78). Rousseau’s wish, argues Chomsky, is to see human beings ‘as nature formed [them]’ (Rousseau, 1997b: p. 124), which he takes to mean as living in accordance with their fundamental needs that in turn are dictated by a distinctly human essence. Indeed, Rousseau is in full agreement with Chomsky on this point:

This same study of original man, of his true needs, and of the fundamental principles of his duties is also the only effective means available to dispel the host of difficulties that arise regarding the origin of moral inequality, the true foundations of the Body politic, the reciprocal rights of its members, and a thousand similar questions, as important as they are badly elucidated (Rousseau, 1997b: p. 128)

Ultimately, argues Chomsky, for Rousseau, ‘the essence of human nature is man’s freedom and his consciousness of his freedom’ (Chomsky, 2008: p. 79). Indeed, it is this that separates human beings from other animals, which act in accordance with mere natural instinct and are not capable in the same way of actions based on their own free agency. The most conclusive evidence for human beings’ freedom of thought, argues Chomsky, in line with Descartes and his followers, is our ‘use of language in the normal, creative human fashion’ (ibid.: p. 81).

For Rousseau, there is another ‘very specific property’ that distinguishes human beings from other animals: ‘the faculty of perfecting oneself; a faculty which, with the aid of circumstances, successively develops all the others, and resides in us, in the species as well as in the individual’ (Rousseau, 1997b: p. 141). In Rousseau’s scheme, then, human beings’ striving for self-perfection occurs not just in terms of the fullest development of specifically personal potentialities. Rather, individual flourishing occurs as a corollary to the development and perfection of human beings collectively. However, whilst Chomsky admires Rousseau’s conception of human nature as inclusive of the will to freedom and self-perfection, he also views Rousseau as a ‘primitive individualist’ who fails to recognise the significance of human beings’ natural sociability and consequent proclivity for free association without external coercion by authoritarian institutions (Chomsky, 2008: p. 87). In morphological terms, and in Chomsky’s view at least, Rousseau does not consider 165 there to be a significant interrelationship between freedom and solidarity; he does not account for the freedom we stand to achieve through the development and perfection of solidaristic (and, of course, non-coercive and libertarian) social forms. However, Chomsky’s reading of Rousseau is perhaps fettered here by his over- reliance on the Discourse on Inequality. For, as argued by Christopher Wise, by reading the Discourse in conjunction with the later Social Contract one stands to gain a much clearer picture of Rousseau’s position, most notably his view that ‘human beings may only experience freedom once they agree to embrace already existing or empirically real laws that enable them to become members of a collective political body’ (Wise, 2011: p. 94). Although Rousseau extrapolates from this central thesis in the direction of a distinctly republican politics which are seen as intolerable from an anarchist perspective, Chomsky fails to acknowledge that, at a conceptual level, one might still harness this aspect of Rousseau’s thought for libertarian purposes. For the ‘laws’ of which Rousseau speaks in that passage need not refer to the arbitrary edicts of an external authority, but rather (as Bookchin acknowledges) to the outcomes of a collective decision making process in which citizens participate on absolutely equal terms. As such, one might read Rousseau in terms which emphasise that participation in a ‘collective political body’ can provide the basis for social solidarity and collective freedom. Nevertheless, Rousseau’s legacy aside, Chomsky’s criticism of him does hint at a concern on his part for solidarity as a necessary condition of human freedom. In flagging up what he perceives to be Rousseau’s individualist tendencies and in emphasising the human capacity – proclivity, even – for free association, he is highlighting a morphological interdependency between the two notions of liberty and solidarity. For Chomsky, human solidarity not only removes the need for an external authority to maintain social order (coercive institutions such as the state) and therefore allow for a social existence without political authority (negative liberty), but in allowing for human beings to realise their natural tendency for solidaristic relations speaks to human flourishing in a positive sense as well (positive liberty).

Chomsky’s reappraisal of Enlightenment thinking – principally focused on the works of Smith, Humboldt and Rousseau – provide us with an instructive perspective on classical liberal notions of freedom. Contrary to the commonly held view that these thinkers’ concerns for individual liberty constituted the philosophical foundations of

166 the European bourgeois revolution and the highly predatory, antihuman forms of socio-economic organisation that would emerge in the nineteenth century (particularly in the case of Smith), Chomsky shows us that, in fact, their ideas need to be reinterpreted in light of the coercive social relations that became engendered by that very system. Chomsky insists – convincingly, it must be said – that from this vantage, it is clear that the social relations inherent to the capitalist mode of production would starkly contravene the central principles of classical liberal thought. Given the imperative of human freedom, under the capitalist mode it is not only the state and the church whose authority must be scrutinised and dismantled but also those economic institutions – wage slavery, excessive specialisation and so on – that reproduce coercive and hierarchical relations. Only in the absence of such institutions, argues Chomsky, and instead in a ‘community of free association’ can free human beings ‘create and inquire, and achieve the highest development of their powers’ (Chomsky, 2008: p. 87). For it is in such a community that human needs are best served, particularly those for ‘spontaneous initiative, creative work, solidarity, pursuit of social justice’ (ibid.: p. 90).

Chomsky’s libertarian socialism The Enlightenment values that characterise Chomsky’s position, concerning notions of human solidarity, freedom and equality, and founded on a distinctive notion of human essence constitute the foundations of his wider libertarian socialist critique of contemporary Western society (Rai, 2005: p. 232). Indeed, there is a clear lineage, argues Chomsky, between classical liberal principles and the socialist rejection of capitalism that emerged in the nineteenth century. Coupled with a rejection of authoritarian state socialism, these concerns were developed into forms of libertarian socialism, the leading idea of which, for Chomsky, was expressed by Bakunin when he declared himself a ‘fanatical lover of liberty’ (in Chomsky, 2013: p. 7). Chomsky endorses Rudolf Rocker’s assertion that anarchism constitutes ‘the confluence of the two great currents which during and since the French Revolution have found such characteristic expression in the intellectual life of Europe: Socialism and Liberalism’ (Chomsky, 2013: p. 9). Indeed, for Chomsky, the conceptual map of anarchist ideology straddles the territory occupied by those two great ideological families, so that ‘anarchism may be regarded as the libertarian wing of socialism’ (ibid.).

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Anarchist ideology thus consists in a kind of intersection across and between the morphologically porous boundaries of liberalism and socialism, so that in hosting concepts found also in each of those ideologies it occupies a shared ideational space. Further, by drawing on concepts prioritised by other ideologies and by propelling them into closer proximity with one another, libertarian socialism creates a new and peculiar idea-environment in which those concepts can be decontested in a distinctive way. For Chomsky, the conceptual anatomy of libertarian socialism is characterised by a concern for liberty through ‘organisation in complex society based on equality and solidarity’ (Chomsky, 2004: p. 153). It is solidarity’s close relationship with liberty, for instance, that results in a concept that emphasises the importance of voluntary association as a necessary basis for free and creative work and individual flourishing, rather than, say, an authoritarian (and ultimately illusory) solidarity imposed by the state. The relationship between those two core concepts also serves to logically shape the libertarian socialist notion of freedom, preventing it from degenerating into a self-interested individualism. Chomsky explicitly identifies this tendency in right-wing libertarian (or ‘anarcho-capitalist’) thought, which, in affording ‘no weight to notions like equality, solidarity, and so on’ effectively amounts to ‘an extreme form of authoritarianism’ as a result of the inevitable imbalances in power that would occur in a society organised according to market forces alone (Chomsky, 2004: p. 153). In its reinterpretation of classical liberal ideals, and its insistence that, in Rocker’s words, ‘Socialism will be free, or it will not be at all’ (Chomsky, 2013: p. 14), anarchism borrows, renews and recasts traditional liberal and socialist concepts so as to form a radical, anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian ideology.

Otero, describing Chomsky’s as ‘the most developed conception of anarchism to date, and the deepest and best founded, intellectually speaking’ (in Chomsky, 2003: p. 29), provides a clear explication of the significance of this conceptual interlinkage within Chomsky’s thought. (It should be noted that Otero recognises that Chomsky’s strategic preferences may be shared by libertarian socialists that are not explicitly anarchist.) I reproduce his tabulation here:

Vision: 1. (Libertarian) self-realisation (vs. neoliberal acquisitiveness) 2. (Socialist) common appropriation of capital (vs. private expropriation) Strategy:

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3. (Popular) cultural transformation (vs. elitist political revolution) 4. (Industrial) syndicalism (vs. any atavistic alternative) (ibid.: p. 30)

Otero correctly presents the idea-preferences above as a series of ‘choices’ (the choice of libertarian self-realisation over neoliberal – or anarcho-capitalist – acquisitiveness, for instance). However to understand the significance of these choices in relation to the reproduction of Chomsky’s ideology, the function of their interrelationships must be reviewed with reference to the notion of morphological decontestation. The decision to choose one logical option over another is not merely a value-judgment. Of course, it is a value-judgment, but it is one which has quite specific consequences for the shaping of an ideology and the concepts within it. The process of decontestation – by definition – concerns the affirmation of one logically possible contingency over another (or over a number of others). As such (and as Otero implies), in asserting the above idea-preferences, Chomsky is decontesting various concepts; in negating certain permutations so as to leave just one possible reading he is removing the concept’s contestability. The aspect that Otero does not mention is the part played in this process by the concepts’ interrelationships, by the cultural shaping that takes place by way of their mutual morphological proximity. In other words, the impact that a particular preference has goes well beyond the boundaries of the concept to which it directly pertains; it affects the way in which other concepts are decontested as well. In order to appreciate fully the complexities and nuances within Chomsky’s anarchism, particularly with regard to his notion of solidarity, these inter-conceptual relationships require some exploration.

As we have seen, within Chomsky’s ideology we find a familiar interlinkage between the concepts of freedom and solidarity. As we said at the beginning of this chapter, Chomsky actually rejects the notion that he is in any sense an original ‘anarchist thinker’, preferring instead to think of himself as a ‘derivative fellow traveller’, drawing inspiration from his anarchist predecessors and enriching the anarchist tradition through careful selection of ideas from the point at which ‘radical Marxism24 merges

24 For Chomsky, ‘radical Marxism’ refers to the thought of those non-orthodox, anti-Bolshevik Marxists such as Rosa Luxemburg, Anton Pannekoek, Paul Mattick and Karl Korsch, amongst others, as well as the more libertarian strains in the work of Marx himself (Chomsky, 1998a: p. 120). As Paul Marshall has noted, Chomsky’s inclusion of such thinkers alongside the likes of Rousseau and Humboldt as representatives of a ‘libertarian socialism’ might seem odd, but his intention is to build up a ‘broader libertarian socialist tradition, whose essence can be found, at least in certain aspects of their thinking, in all the aforementioned figures’ (Marshall, 1994: p. 618). 169 with anarchist currents’ (Chomsky, 2003: p. 213; Chomsky, 2013: p. 14). Chomsky’s politics are profoundly influenced by Rocker, a fact to which he testifies in his preface to Rocker’s Anarcho-Syndicalism. Indeed, Chomsky praises Rocker’s ‘faith in the capacity of ordinary people to construct for themselves a world suited to their inner needs’, to develop a ‘culture of liberation’ and the ‘institutional arrangements’ that are most likely to ‘satisfy their deeply rooted striving for freedom, justice, compassion and solidarity’ (in Rocker, 2004: p. iii). In Anarcho-Syndicalism, Rocker echoes classical liberals such as Humboldt and proffers a positive decontestation of freedom, arguing that it consists in ‘the vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full development all the powers, capacities, and talents with which nature has endowed him, and turn them to social account’ (ibid.: p. 16). Again, this hints at the interrelationship between freedom and solidarity, since the products of a genuine freedom – in other words, the flourishing of individual talents – necessarily contribute in a positive way to the attributes of the social body and subsequently to the reinforcement of the feeling of group solidarity. Abilities and talents often manifest themselves as needs – needs to develop the variety of capacities with which an individual may be naturally gifted. And for Chomsky, in a genuinely socialist society, ‘a central purpose will be that the necessary requirements of every member of society be satisfied’ (Chomsky, 1988a: p. 192). Of course, individuals differ greatly in their abilities and preferences, so that should a person feel an overwhelming need ‘to play the piano ten hours a day’, or indeed desire to engage in any other creative activity or physical or intellectual exercise, then provided that the material circumstances permit it, ‘these differential needs should be satisfied in a decent society, as in healthy family life’ (ibid.). However, Chomsky foresees an inevitable scenario in which the needs, wants and aspirations of individuals in a society will come into conflict with one another. Nevertheless, he insists that it is unnecessary – as well as impossible – to have any kind of formal, codified general principles or procedures by which disputes may be resolved. ‘Honest people’, he argues, ‘will differ in their assessments and will try to reach agreement through discussion and sympathetic consideration of the needs of others’ (ibid.). In a society whose politics function along these lines, social solidarity is paramount. The feelings of mutual respect, sympathy and recognition associated with solidarity are necessary conditions of the kind of do-it-yourself politics that Chomsky clearly favours. Currently, says Chomsky, we are unable to readily conceive of conducting social

170 relations in this way beyond the boundaries of only relatively small social groups such as the family or the immediate neighbourhood, since the dominant ideology of competitive capitalism is so pervasive. As such, ‘It is no wonder’, notes Chomksy, ‘that “fraternity” has traditionally been inscribed on the revolutionary banner alongside of “liberty” and “equality”’, since in the absence of ‘bonds of solidarity, sympathy, and concern for others, a socialist society is unthinkable’ (Chomsky, 1988a: p. 192).

Chomsky’s preferred political system is intended to preclude the need for a centralised and professionalised bureaucracy which, at least under a capitalist economy, demonstrably cannot perform the function of genuinely impartial arbitration. In Rocker’s words, by seeking increasing supervision of the lives of citizens, the state serves to place ‘ever greater obstacles in the way of the solidaric [sic] co-operation of human beings and [crushes] out every possibility of new development’ (Rocker, 2004: p. 2). Chomsky’s prescriptions aim to overcome this stifling tendency of the bureaucratic state, to remove the barriers to solidaristic practices by means of a radical democratisation of the everyday, so that individuals, communities, workforces and various other associative groups have maximum control over the decisions that affect their lives. Under the current model of representative democracy, he argues, there exists ‘a monopoly of power centralised in the state’ (Chomsky, 2003: p. 211), and the role of ordinary citizens is merely to ‘ratify decisions taken elsewhere, to adopt the doctrines prepared for them by their superiors’ (in Rocker, 2004: p. 2). Chomsky’s political project seeks to reverse this dynamic, so that ‘the delegation of authority is rather minimal’ and that those to whom authority is delegated ‘should be directly responsive to the organic community in which they live’ (Chomsky, 2003: p. 215). Though he does not provide a hugely detailed political blueprint, Chomsky does clearly make the case for direct participatory democracy at the levels of the local community and in industry and production. He does, however, concede that some level of representation or delegation is both inevitable and necessary, since to involve all members of a collective in absolutely all of the political decisions made is both inefficient and impractical. Such a system would lead inevitably to democratic overload. Ideally, argues Chomsky, participation in the necessary governmental forms is both partial and temporary, so that ‘the members of a workers’ council [for example] who are for

171 some period actually functioning to make decisions that other people don’t have the time to make, should also continue to do their work as part of the workplace or neighbourhood community in which they belong’ (Chomsky, 2003: p. 215). This rotation of governance serves to prevent the rise of administrative elites and consequently ensures that coercive power does not become concentrated within certain political institutions. In Chomsky’s mind, the ideal form of social organisation is one which reflects the human need for freedom and association and should therefore serve to minimise external authority (the ‘anarchist’ aspect) and enhance the potential for individuals to freely associate with one another (the ‘syndicalist’ aspect) (Wilson, 2005: p. 244). As James Wilson notes, the resulting ‘anarcho- syndicalism’ (or ‘libertarian socialism’ – Chomsky makes no distinction) ‘maximises the opportunity to exercise autonomy, freedom, and creativity on the one hand, while finding friendship, solidarity, and love, on the other’ (ibid.). The system of representative democracy that prevails in modern liberal democracies is one in which power becomes centralised within the institutions of the state and the direction in which that power is exercised consequently flows from the top-down. For Chomsky, following Rocker, the effect of this is to stymie the development of the spontaneous solidaristic associations towards which human beings inevitably tend. His proposed alternative – a system of direct democracy whereby any delegation that does occur is minimal, temporary and responsive – is intended to reverse the direction in which political authority is exercised, so that it flows from the bottom-up. The theory is that in doing so it removes the constraints placed upon individuals and communities by centralisation and provides the space necessary for solidarity to flourish. Chomsky’s concept of democracy – though rudimentary and underdeveloped (he acknowledges as much25) – therefore constitutes an adjacent concept within his ideology, since it provides cultural support for solidarity.

However, Wilson has also raised concerns over the feasibility of putting Chomsky’s vision into practice, arguing that it is ‘unlikely that anything like Chomsky’s anarcho- syndicalist form of political organisation can be fully realised’ (ibid.). This criticism, Wilson says, is not founded on the flawed neoliberal assumption that human beings naturally seek to accumulate as many resources as possible and to dominate others,

25 Chomsky refrains from prescribing a precise model: ‘these are matters over which anarchist theoreticians have debated and many proposals exist, and I don’t feel confident to take a stand. These are questions which will have to be worked out’ (Chomksy, 2003: p. 215). 172 but rather on several concerns over the practical administration of a system such as that which Chomsky seemingly favours that lead him to the conclusion that some degree of hierarchy is both inevitable and necessary (ibid.: pp. 244-245). Firstly, he argues, conflict resolution between human beings ‘is usually most effective when it is performed by neutral third parties backed up with the authority to enforce their solution’ (ibid.: p. 245). This third party, states Wilson, will inevitably involve some form of ‘state-vested hierarchy’ and some form of authority being assigned to ‘institutional roles that are constitutionally fixed and vested in a government’ (ibid.). The second point refers to the necessity of specialisation: ‘management of complex institutions, including workplaces and industries, requires special talents and developed skills that take education, experience, and effort to develop’ (ibid.). As such, it is unavoidable that expertise will afford certain individuals with some form of decision-making authority. There is also the issue of efficiency, whereby continual rotation of positions and responsibilities requires individuals to learn the role from scratch each time they are assigned to a new position (ibid.). For Wilson, these factors combined likely make Chomsky’s model unworkable. However, he does concede that it might be more useful to consider Chomsky’s system as a ‘vision’, or an ‘ideal’, which serves not as a literal blueprint to be put into action but rather as ‘a measure to judge whether our current society meets the fundamental human needs of freedom and solidarity’ highlighted by Chomsky’s conception of human nature (ibid.: p. 246). On this approach, one might argue not for a maximal extension of democracy to every aspect of life, for a total abolition of supposedly neutral, third- party arbiters, or for a workforce and administration that is completely non- specialised. Rather, the proposition might be for more democratic decision making processes in more areas of public life, for less formalised, less centralised and less authoritarian procedures, and for less specialisation in industry and governance, at least to the extent that it substantially softens the worst effects of the division of labour. To interpret Chomsky’s writings in this manner provides us with the basis for a much more workable model of action, and seemingly places him in a similar position to that of the British anarchist Colin Ward, who maintained that whilst ‘The concept of a free society may be an abstraction … that of a freeer [sic.] society is not’ (Ward, 1961: p. 3). This approach provides us with a somewhat different conception of an anarchist society: ‘Not as an aim to be realised, but as a yardstick, a measurement or means of assessing reality’ (ibid.).

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Chomsky makes a very similar distinction to that of Ward between the abstract notion of an anarchist future and the practical options that become available to us when we apply anarchist principles to the here-and-now. Indeed, Chomsky’s distinction between ‘visions’ and ‘goals’ is a very important and very practical one. Visions, says Chomsky, refer to ‘the conception of a future society that animates what we actually do, a society in which a decent human being might want to live’ (Chomsky, 1996b: p. 70). Goals, on the other hand, refer to ‘the choices and tasks that are within reach, that we will pursue one way or another guided by a vision that may be distant and hazy’ (ibid.). Chomsky’s anarchism in practice is thus centred on a set of practical objectives formulated from a realistic evaluation of the current socio-political environment. Despite the shift in focus from one set of problems and goals to another, the guiding principle remains the same: ‘The problem of “freeing man from the curse of economic exploitation and political and social enslavement” remains the problem of our time. As long as this is so, the doctrines and the revolutionary practise of libertarian socialism will serve as an inspiration and a guide’ (Chomsky, 1970: pp. xviii-xix). For Larry Portis, this is symptomatic of a certain ‘pragmatism’ on the part of Chomsky, whereby the need for a solution to immediate problems overrides finer conceptual points and allows him to avoid the kind of ‘sectarian strife’ produced by dogmatic ideologies (Portis, 2010: p. 327). Further, it is this pragmatic approach that explains Chomsky’s sometimes seemingly contradictory stances on the role of the state. If we consider his ultimate vision (to replace hierarchical and authoritarian institutions with democratic, participatory ones), and we accept that in a corporate-dominated democracy such as the United States, one of the only ways in which most people can have any influence at all is by voting in elections, then support of the state is not necessarily inconsistent with libertarian principles. As Wilson has stated, in such circumstances, ‘Chomsky the anarchist paradoxically supports efforts to increase the power of the state, at least where it can serve to regulate and check otherwise largely unconstrained and otherwise unaccountable corporate authority’ (Wilson, 2005: p. 247). Chomsky himself has acknowledged that his goals and visions can often come into conflict, but he insists that this does not necessarily amount to a contradictory or inconsistent position. Although his ultimate vision involves the dismantling of state power, his short-term goals often serve to shore up certain aspects of state authority which, though fundamentally illegitimate, ‘are critically necessary right now to impede the

174 dedicated efforts to ‘“roll back” the progress that has been achieved in extending democracy and human rights’ (Chomsky, 1996b: p. 73). State power is under threat not because it is incompatible with the libertarian vision, but precisely because it offers some protection – albeit fairly inadequate protection – to various aspects of it. As such, argues Chomsky, the immediate goals of anarchists should be to defend some state institutions from the neoliberal onslaught, ‘while trying at the same time to pry them open to more meaningful public participation – and ultimately, to dismantle them in a much more free society, if the appropriate circumstances can be achieved’ (ibid.: p. 75). For Chomsky, anarchism should be viewed as a ‘practical “philosophy”’, informed by a vision of the future that is ‘more free and more conducive to a wide range of human needs’, and according to which we should ‘each commit ourselves to the problems we feel most pressing’ (Chomsky, 2004: p. 364). He argues that there is no – and probably can be no – ‘general all-purpose strategy’ for the creation of a libertarian society (Chomsky, 1998a: p. 149). As such, Chomsky’s advice for those seeking to further anarchist aims is: ‘Pick your cause and go volunteer for a group that’s working on it’ (ibid.: p. 152).

Having explored Chomsky’s practical political recommendations for the realisation of solidarity in society, let us return to the morphological significance of his concept. We have seen that, for Chomsky, solidarity is a prerequisite for the egalitarianism that, in turn, is necessary if individuals within a group are to attain the fullest development of their potentialities. As Edgley has noted, Chomsky’s libertarian socialism thus defends a ‘commitment to both equality and liberty’; the two concepts are treated as ‘logically interdependent’ (Edgley, 2000: p. 52). Chomsky’s concept of equality is distinctly socialistic in character; it stipulates the crucial difference between equality of condition and equality of rights, and that the latter is rendered fallacious in conditions which do not allow for the former. Equality of rights is only meaningful if circumstances are ‘such that [individuals] can enjoy these rights. To the extent that inequality of condition impairs the exercise of these rights, it is illegitimate … in a decent society’ (Chomsky, 1988a: p. 193). For Chomsky, this egalitarianism amounts to a central socialist ideal. If we insist upon the primacy of equality of rights over equality of condition, and if those rights include the right to self-development, then in order to preserve the equality of rights, ‘conditions must be equalised at least to the rather considerable extent required to guarantee these rights’ (ibid.). In Chomsky’s

175 scheme, the role of guarantor is played – at least in part – by solidarity, since the right to self-development can only be exercised through free association with others. By way of its proximity to solidarity, the Chomskyan (socialist) concept of equality is decontested in such a way that it ‘denies that inequality of endowment merits or demands corresponding inequality of reward’ and ‘rejects equality of condition as a principle in itself’ (ibid.). Rather, it emphasises the necessity of insuring that each individual has access to the means and resources required to develop their innate talents and capacities.

Collective responsibility and the question of the state We saw earlier the way in which Chomsky’s vision of an anarchist society is reconciled with his support for certain policies prompted and enacted by the very institution(s) to which anarchists are usually defined by their opposition: the state. Although he does, along with pretty well all anarchists, adhere to the view that the state constitutes an illegitimate and oppressive form of political authority which must ultimately be dismantled, his general attitude towards the state is much more ambivalent and pragmatic than one of outright opposition. Indeed, Chomsky readily admits that his ‘short-term goals’ often involve the defence or even the strengthening of ‘elements of state authority which, though illegitimate in fundamental ways, are critically necessary right now to impede the dedicated efforts to “roll back” the progress that has been achieved in extending democracy and human rights’ (Chomsky, 1996b: p. 73). As such, the state policies to which Chomsky offers support are those which he sees as providing some (albeit weak) protection against the very worst effects of the unfettered capitalist free market on individuals and communities. Very often they take the form of state-organised public provision for certain essential services and goods: education, healthcare, basic welfare, general infrastructure and so on. In this way, Chomsky’s position on social policy contrasts sharply with those anarchists such as Colin Ward (and many within the New Left generally) who adopt a much more critical, if not hostile stance towards state provision. Ward argues that the centralised provision of welfare by a highly bureaucratic state post-1945 effectively resulted in the writing off of valuable and empowering traditions of working-class self-help and mutual aid and created a culture of paternalism that tied people into stultifying relationships of dependency

176 that actually served to support rather than challenge the capitalist system (Ward, 1996; 2008: pp. 17-18). For Chomsky, however, in a socio-political climate dominated by a corporate power over which the average individual or community has virtually no influence whatsoever, any conscious decision to relinquish the limited influence that one is able to exert through the liberal-democratic state is naïve at best.26 As such, he regards many anarchists as mistaken in their dogmatic treatment of the state as ‘the fundamental form of oppression’ (in Lilley, 2011).

So, in contrast to the traditional anarchist critique of the paternalistic state, Chomsky posits public provision of certain services (he is speaking here specifically of education, but the principle stands for other policy areas) as a threat to private power and argues that this threat is derived from the fact that the meeting of needs in this way ‘is based on a principle of solidarity’ (Chomsky, 2014a: p. 38). This solidarity, he explains, is embodied in popular support for and broad consent to provide for others’ needs regardless of one’s own. ‘So, for example’, Chomsky says, ‘I had my children fifty years ago. Nevertheless, I feel and I’m supposed to feel that I should pay my taxes so that the kids across the street can go to school’ (ibid.). So within Chomsky’s notion of solidarity is the idea of mutual or collective responsibility for meeting the needs of all members of the community, regardless of one’s connection (or lack of connection) to them. It may seem here that Chomsky is deploying a distinctly social democratic notion of solidarity, one which emphasises ‘the preparedness to share resources … through … the state’ (Stjernø, 2005: p. 2). And, indeed, in instances such as these, he is of course expressing support for social democratic policy preferences, at least as they appear within a liberal-democratic framework. However, this does not mean that his concept of solidarity is necessarily decontested in precisely the same way as that which is found within social democratic ideologies. We have seen how Chomsky’s goals/visions distinction allows for a pragmatic approach which reconciles general principles and immediately available courses of action that are seemingly contradictory – in this case a support for state-organised provision as an alternative to bolstering private or corporate power. However, we might also observe that the mainstream Left preference for redistribution and welfare

26 Chomsky offers a similar explanation for his focus on the US state in his writings on international affairs. Given that the American state, as a functioning democracy, is relatively responsive to domestic public opinion, it makes more sense politically for him to direct his critique at his own state rather than at others, since exposing the effects of its foreign policy, etc. is more likely to result in its modification (Chomsky, 2004: pp. 341-344). 177 provision through the state is not the only policy that is logically compatible with a general preparedness to share amongst members of a community, which is patently a more fundamental type of psycho-social feeling that denotes a form of solidarity as collective responsibility or obligation. As a component of Chomsky’s concept of solidarity, collective responsibility does not necessitate a specific policy preference; there are numerous peripheral concepts with which it may logically interlink, many of which do not involve state provision and thus are not incompatible with Chomsky’s libertarian socialist vision. Preparedness to share resources in and of itself does not specify the means by which they are to be shared. Redistribution (or sharing) can occur in a number of ways that bypass or preclude state-involvement – cooperatives and credit unions; the Israeli kibbutzim; workers’ councils models such as that experimented with in the former Yugoslavia in the 1950s may be cited as but a handful of examples, whilst anarchist movements and various alternative forms of living have doubtless involved many more forms. The crucial point is that regardless of form, the mode of sharing or (re)distribution is reliant on the feeling of which Chomsky speaks when he describes the attitudes of collective responsibility and mutuality that provide general support for public provision. As Barry Pateman points out in his introduction to Chomsky on Anarchism, the strength of the feeling of collective responsibility yields ‘ways of being that can operate within capitalism and point the way to a future of anarchy. Hence, Chomsky can argue that progressive taxation and Social Security are created by attitudes which, if pushed a little more, would be anarchist’ (Pateman, 2005: p. 8). Besides, in more pragmatic terms, if collective responsibility is manifest as redistribution by the state, given that the immediate alternative would likely involve an extension of private power and consequently a diminution of individual and social freedom then, for Chomsky, it is an obvious political choice. As such, the policy of redistribution by the state is culturally adjacent to the core concepts within Chomsky’s ideology, wherein his notion of freedom is decontested as pertaining in part to a fundamental opposition to illegitimate state authority. Despite the ostensible incompatibility of freedom from interference by an illegitimate state and a concept of solidarity which, under certain circumstances is manifest as collective responsibility through state-organised redistribution, the association of the two notions, to put it in Freeden’s terms, is encouraged by ‘specific historical and socio-geographical phenomena’ (Freeden,

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1996: p. 72), namely the pragmatic necessity of invoking collective responsibility through state redistribution in the face of corporate power.

Nevertheless, Chomsky still insists upon a fundamental opposition to the state in principle: ‘States are … combinations of the rich and the government to oppress the poor … You don’t call upon that combination to get rid of injustice, what you do is dismantle it’ (Chomsky, 2014b: pp. 85-86). However, the attainment of the power to bring about such changes does not necessarily prefigure the dismantling of the state in itself and may be achieved ‘either through or over the state’ (ibid.: p. 86). In this way, Chomsky’s immediate goals may seem to conflict with his ultimate vision, but he insists that his position is not an inconsistent one, that progress can only be attained by rigorous assessment of the options available in specific circumstances. For Chomsky, the value of solidarity as collective responsibility lies in the challenge it poses to corporate power and the individualistic attitudes entrenched by neoliberalism. He argues that solidarity is precisely ‘counter to the doctrine that you should just look after yourself and let everyone else fall by the wayside’ (Chomsky, 2014a: p. 38). He explicitly cites the examples of public education and Social Security, but we can assume that for Chomsky any similar form of public provision constitutes ‘a threat to [neoliberalism/individualism] because it builds up a sense of solidarity, community, mutual support’ (ibid.: p. 39). It is precisely because these policies are linked to the very idea of solidarity that they have generally been opposed by capital: ‘If you’re trying to maximise profit’, observes Chomsky, ‘then working together is the wrong idea … Solidarity makes people hard to control and prevents them from being passive objects of private power’ (ibid.). The priorities of capital generally and more recently in the form of neoliberal structural adjustment, have been aimed at undermining solidarity, not only in its attempts at ‘rolling back’ public provision (or ‘state intervention’), but also in its concerted attack on organised labour. Indeed, Chomsky points to the oppressive labour laws in the US (citing the Taft-Hartley Act and the 2011 Wisconsin Act 10 as a more recent example), arguing that they are draconian to the extent that in the US, meaningful expression of ‘working-class solidarity is actually illegal’ (ibid.: pp. 40-41; Chomsky, 1996a: p. 156). We turn now to the importance of class in Chomsky’s decontestation of solidarity.

Class

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According to Pateman, Chomsky sees ‘class as the central tenet of anarchism’ and his work seeks to encourage an approach which emphasises ‘the importance of solidarity and community in a class-based way’ (Pateman, 2005: p. 8). The notion of class is thus crucial for both Chomsky’s anarchism generally and his peculiar decontestation of solidarity. However, Chomsky’s focus on class has come in for criticism from some quarters and has even led George Woodcock to insist that he is not an anarchist but rather a left-wing Marxist who ‘selects from anarchism those elements that may serve to diminish the contradictions in Marxist doctrine’ (Woodcock, 1974: p. 4).27 In doing so, argues Woodcock, Chomsky impoverishes anarchism by ‘abandoning the elements that do not serve [his] purpose’ and ‘reducing it … to a mere cluster of tactical concepts’ (ibid.: p. 5). Woodcock’s quest for doctrinal purity has been rebutted by Milan Rai, who inverts the criticism of Chomsky’s ideological pluralism, observing that, in fact, ‘Chomsky regards anarchism as “primary” … and selects those elements in the Marxist tradition that help to enrich this tradition’ (Rai, 1995: p. 97). Indeed, Chomsky himself has declared a distaste for the doctrinaire thinking espoused by both Woodcock and many Marxists alike; he sees any deliberate refusal not to learn from Marx – whom he considers ‘a major intellectual figure’ (Chomsky, 2004: p. 365) – as equally foolish as accepting uncritically every aspect of his analyses. The thrust of Woodcock’s critique appears to centre on Chomsky’s conception of class. It is worthwhile here to review in more detail the nature of this critique, for in addressing its central points we can illuminate the way in which Chomsky understands the notion of class and the place it takes within the morphology of his anarchism and in relation to his concept of solidarity.

In an article in Freedom in 1974, in response to the publication of Daniel Guérin’s Anarchism, for which Chomsky wrote the Introduction, Woodcock denied that Chomsky (nor Guérin, for that matter) could be considered an anarchist ‘by any known criterion’ (Woodcock, 1974: p. 4). His claim rests partly on Chomsky’s supposed over-reliance on ‘narrow’ anarcho-syndicalist theorists such as Rocker and libertarian Marxists such as Pannekoek, but also on his emphasis on ‘the classic category of the industrial proletariat’ as revolutionary agents (ibid.: pp. 4, 5). It is not

27 Incidentally, some anarchists have in turn argued that Woodcock himself is not an anarchist (Marshall, 1994: p. 626). 180 clear whether Woodcock sees the latter aspect as cause or consequence of Chomsky’s choice of theoretical touchstones, but, irrespectively, its relevance is questionable when one considers that anarchists too – albeit often operating with a broader conception of the working class – have traditionally held that group to be the flagbearers of social revolution. Woodcock sees this approach as misplaced and out- of-date, as a hangover from nineteenth- and early twentieth-century revolutionary dogma. To restrict revolutionary agency in such a way, he argues, is to place one’s hopes for social transformation in the charge of a group who ‘will continue to diminish both in numbers and in strength if present technological trends continue’ (ibid.). Further, he claims, it is to ignore the part played by non-working-class revolutionaries, by those who, regardless of their own social class, ‘seek a society where the potentialities of existence are varied and liberated, a society to be approached by lifestyle rebellion as well as by economic struggle’ (ibid.).

It scarcely needs to be said that Woodcock is quite correct to point out that, firstly, the industrial proletariat, traditionally understood, can no longer bear the burden of revolutionary agency alone (still less in the 21st century than in the 1970s); and, secondly, that those from outside of the traditional working class have contributed and continue to contribute greatly to revolutionary and emancipatory struggles all over the world. Nevertheless, his criticism of Chomsky on this point is misplaced, for Chomsky’s conception of class is far more nuanced than Woodcock’s portrayal would suggest. Class is a key component of Chomsky’s writings on social transformation. However, whilst he makes no equivocation that ‘class analysis is indispensable to understanding of social processes’, he is sceptical as to whether the ‘particular formulations’ of class found in Marx (i.e. the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’) ‘were either historically accurate or applicable today’ (Chomsky, 2004: p. 144). Crucially, though, when Chomsky refers to ‘the proletariat’ or ‘the working class’, he is not speaking merely of urban industrial wage-earners. Rather, as he put it in an interview for Black Rose in 1974 (which, incidentally, appeared some eight or nine months before Woodcock’s article – one assumes he missed it), it is possible to ‘identify roughly a class of productive workers which now includes a pretty diffuse spectrum going all the way from manual labourers to technicians to scientists to creators of intellectual culture’ (ibid.). This class, in Chomsky’s view, should now ‘play the role that Marx’s proletariat played’ (ibid.: p. 145). And whilst Chomsky, as

181 he himself puts it, ‘wouldn’t expect professors at MIT to be spearheading the revolution’, he does argue in favour of a wider, more inclusive notion of a ‘proletarian class’, one which can potentially ‘include everyone’ and which should ‘have control directly of its own productive work’ (ibid.).28

This idea is formed in part by Chomsky’s mistrust of the notion that class consciousness and class solidarity are crystallised solely or chiefly by the experience of material deprivation. Indeed, he sees ‘that sort of nonsense’ as a highly arrogant attitude characteristic of the worst tendencies of leftist intellectual elites (Chomsky, 2004: p. 146). Rather, Chomsky argues, what impels people – of all classes – to social action is, quite simply, the fact that they ‘happen to be concerned about others’, or, as he puts it another way, a ‘tremendous concern for justice, not for material goods’ (ibid.: pp. 145, 146). Indeed, whilst Chomsky does accept that in some cases ‘material deficit … can contribute to some sort of new consciousness’, appeals to working-class revolutionary action formulated solely along such lines can in fact serve to prop up the very ideology that produces it in the first place, since it rests on a conception of human beings merely as consumers or economic maximisers (ibid.: pp. 146-147). Allied to the illusory ‘prospect of endless growth’ such strategies often encourage the idea that it is ‘rational to accept the society biased against you in the hope that in the future you’ll be able to consume more than you consume today’ (ibid.: p. 146). With this danger in mind, Chomsky’s strategical preference is quite straightforward: to actively confront society’s ‘official’ norms of economic maximisation and subservience in production by demonstrating how remote they actually are from the majority of human behaviours and social interactions (ibid.: p. 148). Further, such demonstration necessarily encompasses both ‘logical argument’ and practical ‘efforts to build solidarity among people by whatever means’ (ibid.: pp. 148-149). In this way, Chomsky feels that it is possible to ‘illustrate by action and organisation the ways in which theological [sic.] arguments are correct and how the gaps between official values and human values can be overcome’ (ibid.: p. 149).

28 In this sense, Chomsky can be seen to pre-empt, albeit in a crude, underdeveloped way, Michael Hardt’s and Antonio Negri’s concept of the ‘multitude’, a social body that is potentially highly heterogeneous but which also constitutes an ‘active social subject, which acts on the basis of what the singularities share in common’ (Hardt and Negri, 2009: p. 100). 182

Chomsky is thus arguing for a reconfiguration of public discourse regarding general ethical orientation. This reconfiguration should be based on a normative appeal to human solidarity and social justice. His notion of class is central to this appeal, but rather than pertaining merely to some crude dichotomy of material surplus/deficit – or even solely to productive relations – it is arranged in such a way as to emphasise the importance of common human experiences of and concerns for injustice that transcend traditional social barriers. The inclusiveness of Chomsky’s conception of class is crucial in relation to his concept of solidarity. In the argument that a potentially progressive or revolutionary class is necessarily demographically and socially heterogeneous, Chomsky avoids the outmoded tropes regarding class consciousness and class solidarity that belong to traditional leftist vocabularies. This class, says Chomsky, amounts essentially to the ‘99 per cent’ invoked by the Occupy movement (Chomsky, 2012: p. 32). It may also be referred to as the ‘precariat’ (those ‘who live a precarious existence at the periphery of society’), whereas the super-rich minority (the wealthiest one per cent) have become the ‘plutonomy’ – the wealthy elite by whose fortunes the success or otherwise of the wider economy is measured. The imagery of the ‘99 per cent’ and the ‘one per cent’ is of course a rhetorical device rather than a literal assessment of the state of global wealth inequality. The super-rich ‘plutonomy’ to which Chomsky refers actually consists of a small fraction of the wealthiest one per cent. Equally, the 99 per cent – the ‘precariat’ – do not all live the marginalised, precarious existence that the simplistic distinction suggests (although Chomsky does argue that the precariat now constitutes ‘a very substantial part of the society in the United States, and indeed elsewhere – ibid.: p. 33). Nevertheless, the slogan does capture the reality of the proliferation of extreme inequality in recent years that, according to a 2014 Oxfam report, has resulted in the world’s richest 85 people owning ‘as much as the poorest half of humanity’ (Seery and Caistor Arendar, 2014: p. 8). It is the gross injustice of issues such as global inequality that Chomsky sees as potential bases for solidaristic collective action in favour of radical social change. When an economic system serves none but the tiniest minority, appeals to solidarity founded on a broadly conceived notion of shared class experience are likely to resonate. Indeed, Chomsky’s analysis of the Occupy movement certainly emphasised this potential, despite the fact that, ultimately, it remained unrealised:

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The most exciting aspect of the Occupy movement is the construction of the linkages that are taking place all over. If they can be sustained and expanded, Occupy can lead to dedicated efforts to set society on a more humane course (Chomsky, 2011)

Conclusion Solidarity resides within the core of Chomsky’s ideological morphology; it is crucial to the articulation of his ideology as a whole. In addition to the ineliminable component, Chomsky’s concept of solidarity comprises four idea-components: universal inclusion; cohesion; collective responsibility; and the social production of individuality. Chomsky’s appeal for solidarity on the basis of a more broadly conceived notion of shared class experience indicates a clear preference for a normative notion of universal inclusion. Further, he explicitly states that solidarity involves collective responsibility for the satisfaction of the needs of all members of a community. Importantly, however, he is more ambivalent than some anarchists about the role of the state in relation to said provision. Whilst he ultimately conceives of the state as an illegitimate authority, in instances whereby the immediate alternative to state provision is the extension of private power, Chomsky sees no contradiction in anarchists defending what little protection against the free market the state does provide. Although they are administered by institutions whose authority he regards as illegitimate, for Chomsky these forms of provision signal a more fundamental feeling of mutual obligation which is rooted in a solidarity that need not necessarily be expressed in this way. Indeed, for Chomsky, the generally supportive attitude of the public for state provision of certain key services indicates the possibility of anarchist forms of organisation that are impelled by collective responsibility.

Chomsky’s conception also emphasises the aspect of cohesion, which is formed in relation to his inclusive notion of class. According to this conception, Chomsky seeks to depart from more narrow, restrictive ideas as to revolutionary agency and class consciousness shaped solely by the experience of material deprivation. He attempts to construct a wider notion of class based on shared experiences of injustice that transcend traditional social divisions and provide the basis for a normative appeal to human solidarity, and function as a bulwark against egoistic individualism.

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Further, the concept incorporates the notion of individuality as a social product, since Chomsky insists that the supportive network provided to individuals within a solidaristic community provides the best conditions for the realisation of individual flourishing. In turn, the natural differentiation produced when individuals develop their unique potentialities contributes in turn to a social interdependence that reinforces solidarity. Figure 7 displays the configuration of Chomsky’s concept of solidarity:

Figure 7: Chomsky’s concept of solidarity

Social Universal production of inclusion individuality

Individual- collective bond

Collective Cohesion responsibility

Whilst he is convinced that human beings possess an essential nature, Chomsky is unable to say with any degree of certainty what that nature is and the consequences it has for political and social theory. Nevertheless, he expresses hope that it involves the capacity for social solidarity, for he sees solidarity as a prerequisite for the realisation of a genuine human freedom. Through a reappraisal of classical liberal thought, Chomsky recasts the Enlightenment preoccupation with freedom in terms which are applicable to contemporary industrial capitalism and argues that the present mode of production is inhumane on account of its reliance on coercive property relations. He conceives of these relations as obstructing the human tendency for free association and for solidaristic social structures which provide an environment in which we are able to fulfil the need for creative expression. Chomsky thus draws attention to an important three-way morphological relationship between solidarity, freedom and equality. Equality is absolutely necessary for the realisation of freedom, since its absence inevitably involves coercive property relations.

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Freedom is a necessary precondition for solidarity since it allows for human beings’ spontaneous and voluntary association. Solidarity is essential for both of those core concepts: it is a necessary bulwark against the individualism that undermines equality and it provides the conditions of association and interdependence in which human beings are able to realise their creative potentialities (freedom). This conceptual interlinkage is clear in Chomsky’s characterisation of anarchism as a confluence of liberalism and socialism.

At the periphery of Chomsky’s ideology are found the practical political proposals that stem from his core conceptual focus on solidarity. This aspect of Chomsky’s thought consists chiefly in a radical democratisation of everyday life, in an attempt to introduce more direct and responsive forms of decision making in communities and workplaces so as to give individuals and groups maximum control over their lives. Democracy is a crucial component of Chomsky’s anarchism, since it helps to overcome the authoritarian institutions and practices that undermine solidarity.

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7. Conclusion

This study has presented analyses of the concepts of solidarity as found in the work of four anarchist thinkers: Bakunin, Kropotkin, Bookchin and Chomsky. Through the application of an analytical framework informed by Michael Freeden’s morphological method, it has sought to explore the way in which each of these thinkers ‘decontests’ solidarity – to ascertain more precisely the meanings affixed to the concept by each thinker.

The purpose of this final chapter is ultimately twofold. The first aim is to establish, by way of cross-comparison of each thinkers’ concept, the extent to which there can be said to be a distinctively ‘anarchist’ concept of solidarity. This process necessarily involves the identification of commonalities and divergences in the internal morphology of each thinkers’ concept, and also in the way in which the concepts operate within the wider conceptual structure of their respective ideologies. I will argue that, despite some crucial differences between the four thinkers’ conceptions of solidarity, they share sufficiently similar ideational content, and function in sufficiently similar ways within their respective ideological environments for a representative ‘anarchist’ concept to be identified. However, this is not to say that one can offer a synthesis of the four conceptions; to impose an artificial homogeneity in such a way is inevitably to risk a degree of conceptual distortion. It would also be unnecessary, for as Freeden reminds us, ‘Ideologies are capable of bending under pressure, and of hosting a number of variations on each of their concepts without collapsing’ (Freeden, 1996: p. 82). So, whilst there are clearly important differences between the four concepts, this does not preclude their all being recognisable as anarchist notions of solidarity. Rather than synthesis, then, the intention is to construct a profile of a representative anarchist concept of solidarity by drawing attention to the shared ideational components that its various instances host in common, and exploring the morphological role played by solidarity in anarchist ideologies.

The second aim is to consider how the anarchist concept might affect our perceptions of what solidarity means and how it might further our understanding of

187 anarchism as an ideology. This evaluation will draw upon the literatures on solidarity and on the conceptual configuration of anarchist ideology.

It was argued at the outset that there is a strong empirical case for assuming that all concepts of solidarity contain the fundamental notion of a bond between individual and collective. This constitutes the ineliminable component of solidarity; if some notion of an individual-collective bond is absent from a concept, then that concept is almost certainly not solidarity. However, the ineliminable component in itself is not sufficient to communicate a full concept; it tells us nothing about the distinctiveness of the particular concept of solidarity to which it belongs. For this, more information is required. Given this, the final analysis is not especially concerned with the individual- collective bond (since all concepts of solidarity host that component), but is focused instead on the additional ideational content which serves to elaborate the concept, to provide the ineliminable component with a more precise meaning, to allow for its application to political realities and to make it distinctive. Put differently, an understanding of the concepts of solidarity as decontested by Bakunin, Kropotkin, Bookchin and Chomsky necessitates the mapping of their additional idea- components. These components fill areas of meaning that are logically necessary for the communication of a full and coherent political concept. Before proceeding to construct a profile of the anarchist concept of solidarity, I will briefly review the analyses of the concepts of each thinker.

We saw that Bakunin’s concept of solidarity contains, in addition to the ineliminable component, four quasi-contingent components: mutual recognition, cohesion, fraternity, and collective responsibility. Further, I suggested that Bakunin uses the concept of solidarity in two distinct ways, and that certain of these components take on increased (or decreased) levels of importance depending on the nature of its usage and its relationship to various adjacent concepts at any one time. I labelled the first usage ‘natural solidarity’, which refers to the social interdependence that is inevitably produced by the need of individuals within a community to attain mutual recognition. This usage emphasises the link between solidarity and the adjacent concept of natural law, and the notion of mutual recognition becomes more prominent. I labelled the second of Bakunin’s usages ‘class solidarity’, which refers to the solidarity of the masses in their economic struggle against the bourgeoisie.

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This usage emphasises the link between the core concept of solidarity and the adjacent concept of class struggle and the notions of cohesion, fraternity and collective responsibility become more prominent.

By contrast to Bakunin, Kropotkin uses the concept of solidarity more-or-less consistently; his writings display only one usage, as it were. Kropotkin’s concept, in addition to the ineliminable component, contains four sub-conceptual features: universal inclusion, community, common interest, and the social production of individuality.

Bookchin introduces an ecological aspect to the concept of solidarity. His concept contains notions of universal inclusion, collective responsibility and the social production of individuality but also stresses the idea of social-ecological harmony, by maintaining that the non-domination of the natural world by human beings requires as an essential precondition solidarity within human society.

The internal morphology of Chomsky’s concept of solidarity is rather more elusive than those of the other three thinkers. As we saw in Chapter 6, Chomsky is not a political theorist as such, and this provides some explanation as to his lack of explicit conceptual definition. However, Chomsky is certainly an ideologist, and it is possible to discern a concept of solidarity from his writings, albeit with a partial reliance on his appraisals of other thinkers. This concept displays the components of universal inclusion, cohesion, collective responsibility and the social production of individuality.

An anarchist concept of solidarity The four thinkers surveyed here each offer distinctive conceptions of solidarity. However, each of their concepts contains sufficiently similar ideas for an anarchist concept of solidarity to be sketched out. I propose that this concept contains, in addition to the ineliminable component of the individual-collective bond, three additional components: (i) universal inclusion (understood as a normative appeal to extend solidaristic relations to all in a global community organised along non- hierarchical lines); (ii) collective responsibility (understood as a collective concern and provision for the welfare and development of all members of that community); (iii) the social production of individuality (understood as the belief that individuals are

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able to realise their unique creative potentialities only in a social context). The morphology of this anarchist concept of solidarity is displayed in Figure 8:

Figure 8: An anarchist concept of solidarity

Collective Universal responsibility inclusion

Individual- collective bond

Social production of individuality

Not all of the four thinkers’ concepts contain all three of these components and some contain additional components that are absent in the others. However, there is sufficient evidence from the cross section of instances of anarchist concepts that one can reasonably expect anarchists to subscribe to a concept that is decontested in such a way. Despite this, there is little about the components I have identified as characteristic of anarchist concepts of solidarity that suggests that the concept is obviously and distinctively anarchist. Indeed, notions such as universal inclusion, collective responsibility and the social production of individuality might just as easily be located within concepts of solidarity as found in other ideologies, particularly in socialist ideologies. As a standalone concept, the ‘anarchist’ concept of solidarity is seemingly not necessarily anarchist at all. However, it must be remembered that it is impossible to fully understand a concept in isolation; as Freeden argues, ‘a concept is meaningless without locating it at the nodal point of a series of relationships with other concepts and ideas’ (Freeden, 1996: p. 75). In order to gain a true understanding of a concept, it must be firmly located within the ideology which promotes it and in relation to the other concepts hosted within that ideology’s morphology. Only then does it take on a distinctive meaning; in this case, only then can peculiarly anarchist values and political prescriptions be elicited from the

190 concept of solidarity. In the following sections, I will seek to demonstrate that: (a) the variant of solidarity I have sketched above sits comfortably within pretty well all anarchist ideologies; (b) the interaction of this otherwise seemingly relatively indistinct concept with its conceptual context serves to provide it with a distinctively anarchist colouring. I begin by exploring in turn each of its three additional components.

Universal inclusion I have said that an anarchist concept of solidarity might be expected to contain the notion of universal inclusion – the normative idea that relations of solidarity are extended to a community that is truly global in scope. According to the analysis I have presented thus far, this component features prominently in the concepts of each of Kropotkin, Bookchin and Chomsky. Kropotkin insists that solidarity must necessarily continuously expand its circle of inclusion if it is to guard against parochialism and individualism. The logical endpoint of his association of the expansion of solidarity with social progress is the normative goal of the solidarity of a fully inclusive human community. As Iain McKay has put it, Kropotkin’s ultimate goal was ‘the creation of a universal human community sharing the globe based on a free federation of peoples no longer divided by classes or hierarchies’ (McKay, 2014: p. 47). Kropotkin’s solidaristic vision was for a community or society that was universally inclusive. Bookchin’s reading of history is similar to that of Kropotkin. Like Kropotkin, he seeks to excavate the lost traditions of mutual aid that prevailed in previous societies, but – again, like Kropotkin – he is critical of the parochialism of the forms of solidarity practiced in those societies and associates positive development with a widening circle of inclusion that makes possible the idea of human solidarity. He places great importance upon the steady evolution of habitual practices of solidarity within relatively exclusive social groups into normative ethics which applied to a ‘universal humanitas’ (Bookchin, 2005: p. 228). Although Chomsky does not construct a socio-historical account like those of Kropotkin and Bookchin, his concept of solidarity does pertain to a normative goal of universal inclusion. This is derived partly from his essentialism; his insistence that human beings share a common and fundamental essence can be seen as a basis for an appeal for a human solidarity with universal scope. Chomsky also places great importance upon the need for a truly inclusive notion of class – one which can

191 potentially ‘include everyone’ (Chomsky, 2004: p. 145) – in order to provide a united and cohesive agent of social change.

I have not identified universal inclusion as a prominent notion within Bakunin’s conception of solidarity, which may undermine the claim that it is characteristic of anarchist conceptions. The principal reason for this anomaly concerns the fact that Bakunin uses the concept of solidarity in two distinct ways. His usage of class solidarity is necessarily exclusive – it pertains to the solidarity of the masses in their struggle against the bourgeoisie. Given this exclusivity, his concept of solidarity cannot explicitly contain a notion of universal inclusion, which is logically incompatible with the oppositional nature of class solidarity. Despite this, I would suggest that the morphology of Bakunin’s concept does display features which are eminently compatible with – or even suggestive of – the notion of universal inclusion. Bakunin conceives of solidarity partially in accordance with the notion of mutual recognition, whereby individuals only truly realise their own existence when it is recognised by others and when they recognise that of others. The inevitable product of this universally held need for recognition is solidarity, for it ensures that individuals within a community are interdependent – they are reliant upon one another for recognition. Solidarity as mutual recognition also has important implications for the way in which Bakunin decontests freedom. Whilst solidarity derives from the universally held need for recognition, for Bakunin, one is free only when one is ‘acknowledged, considered and treated as such’ by all others (Bakunin, 1973a: p. 147). More than this, he argues, one is ‘only properly free when all the men and women about [one] are equally free’, and this requires ‘the strictest equality and solidarity of each and everybody’ (ibid.: pp. 148-149). Solidarity is a precondition for the realisation of freedom, because the freedom of one person is dependent on the freedom of all others. The logical outcome of this requirement is a form of solidarity that incorporates the notion of universal inclusion, since any form of exclusion precludes the freedom of each and all. As such, although the component may not be explicit in Bakunin’s concept, it is implied through the notion of mutual recognition.

The notion of universal inclusion that I have located within an anarchist concept of solidarity is not only a prominent feature of theoretical anarchism, but is also frequently reflected in the ideological expressions of anarchist activists. Indeed,

192 universal inclusion is a near-ubiquitous feature of activist propaganda and rhetoric. The stated principles of the International of Anarchist Federations, for instance, include ‘the abolition of all forms of authority whether economical, political, social, religious, cultural or sexual’, and ‘the construction of a free society, without classes or States or frontiers’ (International of Anarchist Federations, 2009). The desire for universal inclusion is also manifested in the frequently voiced demand by anarchists for the abolition of national and territorial borders. Indeed, the UK-based activist network No Borders explicitly states on its website that many of its members that identify as anarchists subscribe to the belief that ‘a world without borders must also mean a world without states’ (No Borders, 2015). In this instance, the commitment to universal inclusion contained within the anarchist concept of solidarity is projected at the ideological periphery as an explicit political demand for the removal of perceived barriers to inclusion – in this case the illegitimate borders imposed by nation states.

Collective responsibility The second component of an anarchist concept of solidarity is collective responsibility, which refers to the concern of a community for the welfare and development of each and every individual within it. I have explicitly located the notion of collective responsibility within the concepts of solidarity of Bakunin, Bookchin and Chomsky. In Bakunin, we saw that collective responsibility was crucial both for the solidarity of the proletariat in class struggle, and for the consolidation of solidaristic practices in a post-revolutionary society. Bakunin’s writings indicate a clear preference that solidarity must entail a collective concern for the provision of welfare for all within a community; he insisted that the ‘welfare of each’ could only be realised ‘through the solidarity of all’ (Bakunin, 2002: p. 149). He also argued for the importance of collective responsibility for the improvement of workers’ everyday existence and, in a more forward-looking sense, for the provision of support and welfare for all members of society. Bookchin’s positive appraisal of the solidaristic habits of preliterate societies betrays a similar preoccupation with the notion of collective responsibility. His account of the social practices of such societies emphasises the importance of communal participation in basic tasks as the foundation for ‘a sense of responsibility for the community’ (Bookchin, 2005: p. 111). Bookchin’s strict egalitarianism also stresses the importance of collective responsibility for the satisfaction of personal needs, which serves to make individuals

193 in a community ‘members of a larger natural whole’ (Bookchin, 1990a: p. 49). The import he ascribes to the concept of citizenship may also be seen as an attempt to bolster collective responsibility through civic engagement. Similarly, Chomsky conceives of solidarity in terms that explicitly reference the notion of collective responsibility. He insists that in a genuinely free society, ‘a central purpose will be that the necessary requirements of every member of society be satisfied’ (Chomsky, 1988a: p. 192). Further, he makes a direct link between solidarity and collective responsibility, noting that the general collective agreement to the provision of universal education, healthcare, and a host of other public goods and services – even when organised by the state – ‘is based on a principle of solidarity’ (Chomsky, 2014a: p. 38).

I have not identified collective responsibility as a component of Kropotkin’s concept of solidarity. Given its prominence within other anarchists’ conceptions, it seems curious that the language of collective responsibility is rarely used by Kropotkin. When Kropotkin does refer to ethical notions of responsibility he usually has in mind the duty of individuals to conduct themselves in a certain way within a community, rather than the responsibility of the community to, say, provide for the wellbeing of all of its members. However, this is not to say that Kropotkin does not account for the collective provision of individuals’ wellbeing. On the contrary, in The Conquest of Bread (1913) he dedicates an entire chapter to ‘Well-being for all’, in which he stresses that ‘everyone, whatever his grade in the old society … has, before everything, the right to live’ and that ‘society is bound to share amongst all, without exception, the means of existence it has at its disposal’ (Kropotkin, 1995: p. 28). The point, however, is that Kropotkin does not explicitly conceive of this provision in terms which suggest a solidarity entailing collective responsibility. Nevertheless, collective responsibility is implicit in his notion of mutual aid, and his idea of community – which is a clear component of his concept of solidarity – constitutes a viable channel for collective responsibility to manifest itself. Indeed, in identifying mutual aid as the basis of human moral conceptions, Kropotkin’s ethical position is eminently consistent with an appeal for collective responsibility. For Kropotkin, mutual aid arises as a factor of evolution because it constitutes the best means of species’ survival. In time, the practices of mutual aid are translated into ethical conceptions: those actions which contribute to the continuation of the species come

194 to be seen as ‘good’ or ‘ethical’; those which have the opposite effect come to be seen as ‘bad’. In this sense, collective responsibility may be construed as an ethical more, since the cooperative provision for the welfare and development of members of a community through mutual aid provides that community with the means to flourish.

Social production of individuality In contrast to liberalisms, which have often portrayed the individual and the community as potentially conflicting entities, social anarchist ideologies have consistently stressed the interdependence of the community and the individual. Indeed, rather than conceiving of social groups merely as aggregations of individuals, more often than not anarchists have viewed social living as a precondition for the production of the fully developed individual, understood as an autonomous agent in possession of the means to fully realise their own unique potentialities. The aim of anarchist political theory has often been, as Alan Ritter has put it, to ‘combine the greatest individual development with the greatest communal unity’ in ‘a society of strongly separate persons who are strongly bound together in a group’ (Ritter, 1980: p. 3). Ritter refers to this idea as ‘communal individuality’ (ibid.), which John Clark has in turn described as an assertion that ‘personal autonomy and social solidarity, rather than opposing one another, are inseparable and mutually reinforcing’ (Clark, 2013: p. 170). I have preferred the label ‘social production of individuality’, and have identified it as a key component of a representative anarchist concept of solidarity.

Although I have not explicitly identified the notion within Bakunin’s concept, according to his theory the social production of individuality is achieved through mutual recognition. For Bakunin, individuals come to realise their own unique selves only when they are recognised as such by others, and so the attainment of individuality is necessarily a social product. From Bakunin’s insistence that ‘only in society can [man] become a human being’, it follows that, ‘[man’s] individuality as a man, his freedom, is thus the product of the collectivity’ (Bakunin, 1992: p. 47). Solidarity and individuality are thus interdependent: a solidaristic network of supportive community relations is required for the self-development of its individual

195 members, whilst in turn the diversity brought about by the realisation of each members’ unique capabilities contributes to the solidarity of the whole. Similarly, Kropotkin conceives of individuality as a social product, insisting that it is only when in possession of sufficient ‘social capital’ that society is able to seek ‘the most complete development of individuality’ (Kropotkin, 2002: p. 123). In turn, a society comprised of more rounded individuals is likely to be a more solidaristic one, since for Kropotkin ‘social inclinations and instincts of solidarity’ are inevitably qualities of the fully developed individual (quoted in Ritter, 1980: p. 30). Bookchin too insists upon the development of individuality as a necessarily social process. He sees social living as ‘the necessary flesh and blood for genuine individuality’ and argues that amongst our defining characteristics as social beings are ‘our capacities for solidarity with each other, for mutually enhancing our self-development and creativity and attaining freedom within a socially creative and institutionally rich collectivity’ (Bookchin, 1987: pp. 248, 249). Chomsky’s idea of human flourishing also relies upon the notion of individuality as a social product. Taking his lead from Humboldt, who saw ‘social union’ as an essential precondition of individual development, Chomsky argues that it is only within ‘a community of free association’ that human beings are able to achieve the fullest development of their potentialities (Chomsky, 2008: p. 87). Further, this element of anarchist ideology – the ‘theoretical synthesis’, as Clark puts it, of social life and the realisation of individuality – is clearly reflected in anarchist practice in ‘various social forms, including personal relationships, affinity groups, intentional communities, cooperative projects, and movements for revolutionary social transformation’ (Clark, 2013: p. 170).

I have identified above three idea-components which, in addition to the ineliminable component of solidarity, constitute a representative anarchist concept of solidarity. Where the notions of universal inclusion, collective responsibility and the social production of individuality are not explicit within the concept of one of the thinkers considered here, then they are implicit in relation to further ideational features. (For example, Bakunin’s notion of mutual recognition implies universal inclusion, a feature which is explicit in the concepts of the other three thinkers.) Anarchist thinkers and activists alike have consistently striven for a universally inclusive society based upon solidarity, in which divisions of class, race, gender, nationality, etc. are dissolved. In terms of the morphology of the anarchist concept of solidarity, the aspect of universal

196 inclusion lends definition to the ineliminable component so that the collective of the individual-collective bond is decontested as one which, in a normative sense at least, is non-oppositional and fully inclusive. Collective responsibility adds further meaning to the ineliminable component, for it cements the idea that the collective is ultimately responsible for the wellbeing and development of all individuals within it. The notion of the social production of the individual is common to all four of the concepts of solidarity considered here. For social anarchists, the idea of the necessarily social basis of individuality is indelibly bound to the ineliminable core of the concept of solidarity. Accordingly, it serves to provide that ineliminable component (the individual-collective bond) with a more sophisticated meaning: namely that the bond between individual and collective is a productive and symbiotic one, in the sense that the individual is dependent upon the support of the collective for the realisation of his or her individuality, whilst in turn the diversity of the individualities produced by social living contributes to the solidarity of the group. These three components thus provide solidarity with the ideational content necessary for it to be communicable as a full political concept; each adds meaning to the otherwise vacuous core so that the ideology is able to translate the concept into tangible political aims (as we saw with the examples of anarchist demands, derived from the notion of universal inclusion, for a dissolution of national borders).

However, as I remarked earlier, the components I have identified as characteristic of the anarchist conception of solidarity do little to mark it out as distinctively anarchist. It is quite possible – probable, even – that non-anarchist ideologies might comfortably host a concept of solidarity that comprised notions of universal inclusion, collective responsibility and the social production of individuality. In order to make sense of this concept of solidarity as an identifiably anarchist concept, we must explore the way in which it operates within anarchist ideologies, paying particular attention to its relationship to other concepts within those ideologies and the way in which those relationships affect its decontestation.

Solidarity at the anarchist core I have characterised solidarity as a core concept in the ideological morphologies of each of Bakunin, Kropotkin, Bookchin and Chomsky. It is important to remember that, as Freeden sees it, ideological cores are subject to a degree of flexibility, due in

197 part to ‘interpretive projections by the analyst of ideologies’ in relation to their conceptual classification. Nevertheless, he maintains that ‘the insistence on empirical evidence for such analysis must be safeguarded’ (Freeden, 1996: p. 84n). Put differently, it is virtually inevitable that different analysts will offer different readings of what constitutes an ideology’s core and this does not necessarily indicate conceptual incoherence on the part of ideologists or misinformed scholarship on the part of analysts. My own interpretation of the anarchist core differs to those that have been offered in other morphological analyses (see Gordon, 2007b; Franks, 2012 and 2014; Freeden, 1996: pp. 311-314),29 and thus serves only to reinforce the view that a certain measure of interpretive differential is inevitable. Despite this, given that it is supported by detailed analyses of the ideologies of four different anarchist thinkers, I feel as though there is a strong empirical case for offering the conclusion that the anarchist core comprises three concepts: solidarity, liberty (or freedom) and equality. In the following section, I present an account of these three concepts as core concepts in each thinkers work, and discuss the way in which their interlinkage contributes to a distinctive decontestation of solidarity.

For all four thinkers, the concept of solidarity is central to the articulation of their entire ideology and is crucial to the way in which their ideologies function to interpret the political world and formulate political prescriptions. However, it is not enough merely to consider each thinkers concept of solidarity in isolation; they can only be properly understood when firmly located in their quite specific ideational context. I have already explored the importance of the links between Bakunin’s concept of solidarity and his concepts of natural law and class struggle; likewise that between Bookchin’s concepts of solidarity and citizenship. However, the general, representative anarchist concept I have sketched above has not been explored in terms of its interlinkages with neighbouring concepts. As I have said previously, analysis of the concept in isolation does little to reinforce the distinctiveness of the concept or even to mark it out as specifically anarchist. In order to discover these aspects, further consideration of the way in which solidarity operates within the anarchist morphology is required, particularly in relation to its proximity to the other core concepts and the way in which they affect each other’s decontestation.

29 These alternative readings of the anarchist core are discussed later in the chapter. 198

Each of the four thinkers considered here display a relatively consistent ideological core. Although their concepts of solidarity differed slightly from one another in terms of their ideational make-up (due to the proximity of various adjacent concepts – citizenship in Bookchin, for instance), the ideological morphology of all four thinkers displayed a core comprising three political concepts: liberty, equality and solidarity. Bakunin’s self-identification as a ‘fanatical lover of liberty’ (Bakunin, 2002: p. 261) immediately suggests the importance he set by that particular concept, the realisation of which he saw as entirely dependent upon ‘the solidarity and equality of everyone’ (Bakunin, 1992: p. 84). For Bakunin, the interdependence of the three concepts is such that they serve to reinforce one another; each is essential to the realisation of the others. Further, he seeks a particular balance between the core concepts so that, for instance, freedom is not allowed to undermine ‘the superior claim of solidarity, which is and will always remain the greatest source of social goods’ (quoted in Ritter, 1980: p. 28). Kropotkin’s emphasis on freedom was such that he came to define anarchism itself as a call ‘for unlimited freedom’, a goal which he saw as unattainable ‘when capital is monopolised in the hands of a minority’ (Kropotkin, 2014: pp. 112, 113). As such, he came to believe that ‘There can be no liberty without equality’ (ibid.: p. 113) and that a true social revolution must be ‘intoxicated with the beautiful words, Liberty, Equality, Solidarity (Kropotkin, 1995: p. 114). Bookchin’s ideology displays similar conceptual interdependence. In his exploration of the ‘legacy of freedom’ – the liberatory social practices of ‘organic societies’ – Bookchin notes that freedom and equality are concomitant; any commitment to freedom is necessarily founded on a strict egalitarianism, whereby the natural inequalities of individuals are compensated so as to avoid imposing the same burdens ‘on very disparate individuals who have very different abilities to deal with them’ (Bookchin, 1990a: p. 98). For Bookchin, to ignore the need for such an arrangement is to promote an ‘inequality of equals’ which ‘denies the commonality and solidarity of the community by subverting its responsibilities to compensate for differences between individuals’ (Bookchin, 2005: p. 219). Solidarity is thus dependent upon an institutionally secured equality which also allows for the positive realisation of freedom by ensuring that each individual is able to achieve their potential. Chomsky also places great emphasis on the concept of freedom, arguing that it constitutes the central task of philosophy to ‘inquire into the nature of human freedom and its limits’ (Chomsky, 2008: p. 76). According to Chomsky’s critique of

199 neoliberalism, the ideology has jettisoned the values that, for classical liberals, were important supplements to liberty. On this analysis, the political economy of Adam Smith, for instance stemmed from the assumption that ‘people’s fundamental character involves notions like sympathy, and solidarity, the right to control their own work, and so on and so forth: all the exact opposite of capitalism’ (Chomsky, 2013: p. 36). For Chomsky, a liberalism denuded of solidarity becomes profoundly anti- libertarian, for it promotes a concept of liberty which is decontested in terms of an acquisitive self-interest that is used to justify hierarchical property relations wrought by the free market. As such, it is the morphological proximity of freedom to solidarity that allows for the former to be decontested in a positive sense: as the fullest development of individuals’ potentialities. Solidarity in turn is dependent upon equality – not merely before the law, but also in the economic realm, so as to place ‘control over the economy in the hands of free and voluntary associations of producers’ (Chomsky, 2013: p. 12). Chomsky’s concept of equality is thus similar to Bookchin’s ‘equality of unequals’, for an equality that does not incorporate the economic factor and ignores the natural inequalities of individuals is one which, to paraphrase Anatole France, denies the rich and the poor equally the right to sleep under the bridge at night.

Given that the morphology of all four thinkers displays a core that contains the concepts of solidarity, liberty and equality, there is a strong empirical case for asserting that these constitute the core concepts of anarchist ideology generally. Figure 9 shows the conceptual mapping of the anarchist core. Since the study is focused specifically on solidarity and its relationship with its neighbouring concepts, I have not specified the concepts that reside in adjacent and peripheral positions.

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Figure 9: The morphology of anarchist ideology

Peripheral concept

Adjacent Adjacent concept concept

Solidarity Peripheral Peripheral concept concept

Equality Liberty

Adjacent Adjacent concept concept

Peripheral Peripheral concept concept

The place of solidarity is critical to the articulation of anarchism as an ideology, for it produces a decontestation of liberty that allows for both a positive and a negative aspect. Social solidarity does not, as liberals might suggest, impede the negative liberty of the individual; it does not constitute undue coercion or constraint. On the contrary, as we have seen, anarchists see solidarity as the very affirmation of individual liberty. Further, the relationship of solidarity to freedom is such that the latter is precluded from signifying the freedom to exploit or dominate. Solidarity thus plays a crucial morphological role in ruling out a decontestation of liberty as pertaining to egoistic notions of competition. As Kropotkin explains, ‘The ideal of liberty of the individual – if it is incorrectly understood owing to surroundings where the notion of solidarity is insufficiently accentuated by institutions – can certainly lead isolated men to acts that are repugnant to the social sentiments of humanity’ (Kropotkin, 2002: p. 143). Solidarity is thus central to the preservation of a properly conceived notion of individual liberty – one which emphasises development and individuality rather than self-interest.

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Equally, solidarity is only made possible by absolute liberty positively conceived as the fullest development of individuality that contributes to diversity and social interdependence. It is the proximity of liberty to the anarchist concept of solidarity that marks it out as distinctively anarchist. Whilst various ideologies may subscribe to a notion of solidarity denoting universal inclusion, collective responsibility and the social production of individuality, it is only through its interlinkage with a particular notion of liberty that the concept takes on a distinctively anarchist appearance. As Bakunin puts it, unity can become ‘fatal, destructive of the intelligence, the dignity, the well-being of individuals and peoples whenever it is formed without regard to liberty’ (Bakunin, 2002: p. 106). Indeed, for Bakunin, ‘Liberty for all and mutual respect for that liberty’ were seen as ‘the essential conditions for international solidarity’ (Bakunin, 1973: p. 256). It is the proximity of liberty that allows for an understanding of solidarity which stresses its spontaneous and free organisation as opposed to that coordinated by the state or party apparatus. Thus, for Bakunin, ‘Herr Marx obviously wants nothing to do with that solidarity, since he refuses to acknowledge that liberty’ (ibid.). It is the interlinkage of solidarity and liberty that distinguishes the anarchist conception from those found in other socialist ideologies, since, as Kropotkin puts it, ‘In contrast to all these other parties, the Anarchists are the only ones to defend the principle of liberty’ (Kropotkin, 2014: p. 199).

Anarchist ideologies: a contested morphology The principal contribution of this study has been to offer an original analysis of anarchist conceptions of solidarity. Through an application of Freeden’s morphological approach, it has identified the key idea-components that constitute the concepts of solidarity of four anarchist thinkers and has suggested a profile of a broadly representative ‘anarchist’ concept. The morphological analysis has also provided an instructive perspective on the place of solidarity within anarchist ideologies and, indeed, on the general morphological structure of those ideologies. There is an existing scholarship that has sought to capture the morphology of anarchist ideologies – not least that of Freeden himself, although his reflections on the morphology of various forms of anarchism amount to no more than a few pages. The anarchist academic Benjamin Franks has formulated a more detailed conceptual analysis of anarchism based on Freeden’s methodology which contests some of

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Freeden’s central assumptions as to the nature of the ideology’s morphology (Franks, 2012; 2014). Similarly, Uri Gordon offers a novel interpretation of anarchism’s morphological core based on participant observation of anarchist movement actors (Gordon, 2007b). Although my focus in this study is primarily on the concept of solidarity within anarchist thought, the analysis has produced findings that offer an alternative perspective on the nature of anarchist ideologies generally, in terms of their conceptual morphology. Indeed, the exploration of the place and nature of the concept of solidarity in anarchist thought and anarchist ideology sheds considerable light on the way in which we might view the wider conceptual structure in which that concept is located. In particular, it is important to stress that this study, contrary to previous interpretations, has categorised solidarity as one of anarchism’s core concepts.

On Freeden’s analysis, anarchism has three core concepts:

first … antagonism to power, culminating in the desire to annihilate it (power is decontested as centralised and hierarchical and manifested above all, though not exclusively, in the state); second, a belief in liberty, decontested as spontaneous voluntarism; third, the postulation of natural human harmony (Freeden, 1996: pp. 311-312)

Franks argues – correctly – that although this is indeed an accurate representation of ‘typical academic accounts’ of anarchism, when it comes to most variations of social anarchism (as opposed to individualist anarchism), these do not in fact constitute core concepts (Franks, 2012: p. 215). In Freeden’s defence, he does allow for the fact that ‘It may be mistaken to lump the two schools of anarchism under one roof’, given that their respective conceptual arrangements display ‘insufficient joint features to construct a collective family profile’ (Freeden, 1996: pp. 311-312). Freeden argues that the two anarchist schools become distinct by virtue of their adjacent concepts, which when conjoined to the common core detailed above ‘elicit very different sets of beliefs’ (ibid.: p. 312). Nevertheless, he maintains that these three features are fundamental. Freeden identifies ‘the socialist anarchist appeal to social solidarity’ as the adjacent concept supplying social stability (ibid.: p. 314). Solidarity is adjacent, he says, to the core concept of the postulation of natural human harmony, which is also found in individualist anarchism but decontested in that instance through an appeal to ‘the harmonious potential of benevolent reason’ (ibid.). Since I am 203 concerned here solely with social anarchisms, the category of ‘the postulation of natural human harmony’ within socialist anarchism becomes non-contingent. In other words, it is invariably satisfied by a notion of social solidarity which, as such, may be considered a core concept.

Franks disputes Freeden’s reading in a number of other ways. First, he points out that anarchists are not opposed to power in all forms, but rather that ‘they recognise that power can be constructive and non-hierarchical’ (Franks, 2012: p. 215). Second, he contests the notion that, for anarchists, liberty is necessarily spontaneous, arguing that it is sometimes premeditated and coordinated through social institutions. Third, he opposes the idea that anarchists subscribe to a ‘benign essentialism’ such as that implied by Freeden’s emphasis on the notion of a ‘natural human harmony’, arguing that anarchists account for both social and anti-social tendencies in human beings (ibid.). Franks dismisses appeals to ‘humanism or, indeed, any sort of essentialism’ as ‘inherently weak and open to all sorts of criticisms’, but insists that anarchism need not rely on such assumptions. He argues that the characterisation of anarchism as non-coercion supported by a humanistic account of the individual is misplaced, for two reasons. First, because anarchists are clear that humans have malevolent as well as benevolent tendencies; second, because anarchism is not singularly concerned with the rejection of coercion, but ‘is connected to other principles, such as equality and solidarity’. As such, it is consistent with anarchist principles ‘to use minimally coercive methods against those institutions whose function is to disempower the already disadvantaged’ (Franks, 2012: p. 61). In other words, there is no need for a benign essentialism to support anarchism’s claims that coercive apparatuses are unnecessary, because it is quite justifiable to use a degree of coercion in order to dismantle oppressive institutions and structures.

In place of these three concepts, Franks proposes that the anarchist core comprises ‘anti-hierarchy’ (usually – but not always – evidenced in the anarchist rejection of state institutions and an opposition to capitalism); ‘anti-mediation’ (understood as a rejection of representative democracy and a preference for direct action); and ‘prefiguration’ (a demand for political means to remain consistent with the stated ends) (ibid.: p. 216). Gordon’s analysis is not dissimilar. On his reading, the ideology’s ‘emergent stable core’ comprises ‘the construction of the concept of

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“domination”, which clarifies how anarchists construct what they object to in society’; ‘direct action and the ethos of “prefigurative politics”’; and a ‘strongly open-ended conception of politics that is detached from any notion of a post-revolutionary resting point, expressing the experimental nature of anarchist strategies and their focus on the present tense’ (Gordon, 2007b: p. 30).

Franks’s conceptual classification thus relies in part upon negative concepts which are defined in terms of their rejection of something. Concepts of ‘anti-hierarchy’ and ‘anti-mediation’ are negative, in that they consist in the negation of hierarchy and mediation respectively. Similarly, in locating the concept of domination within the anarchist core, Gordon seems to be saying that anarchism is defined in terms of what it opposes. As he himself recognises, ‘Domination is not a value, like freedom or equality or solidarity – it is a disvalue: what anarchists want to negate’ (ibid.: p. 37). As such, the implication is that these concepts are actually more peripheral and that their roles within anarchist ideology stem from more fundamental normative values. One is not opposed to hierarchy and mediation merely for the sake of it; opposition to both phenomena must be derived from positive values that are inhibited by them. As Franks recognises in his critique of analytic accounts of anarchism that posit opposition to the state as its defining characteristic, ‘the rejection of the state follows from a more fundamental principle: the absolute respect for the negative freedom of the individual’ (Franks, 2014: p. 55). Similarly, one might suggest that the promotion of anti-hierarchy and anti-mediation in fact stems from a normative commitment to, say, individual liberty, which is curtailed by hierarchical social structures and a politics of mediation. As Kropotkin insists, the characterisation of ‘the anarchist principle’ as ‘“No State”, or “No Authority”, in spite of its negative formulation, had a deeply affirmative meaning’ (Kropotkin, 2014: p. 197). For Kropotkin, the essence of anarchism was that human society ought to be reorganised ‘according to the principles of Anarchy, namely with complete and total liberty in individual relationships, with natural and temporary associations, and with social solidarity as a guiding principle’ (ibid.: pp. 197-198). The anarchist opposition to hierarchy and domination thus stems from a more positive commitment to freedom, equality and solidarity, the realisation of which is dependent upon the dissolution of external authority and inequality. It is this that led Bakunin to declare that, in order to achieve the end of genuine social revolution, ‘there is but one

205 means: Destroy all the institutions of Inequality; establish the economic and social equality of all, and on this basis will arise the liberty, the morality, the solidary humanity of all’ (Bakunin, 1970: p. 43n).

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